The onion fish
The onion fish was a (satirical) magazine that dealt with typography , writing, book art, publishing, literature and art. It appeared from 1909 to 1934 with a total of 24 volumes; between 1946 and 1948 a 25th year was published. The onion fish can conditionally be counted among the art and literary magazines of Munich modernism before the First World War , to which Pan , Jugend , Die Insel and Hyperion belong. The publisher was the Munich book art publisher Hans von Weber (1872–1924), the first three editions were published by the writer Franz Blei , from then on until his death in April 1924 the publisher himself.
Idea, name and foundation
The onion fish was a magazine from the Munich Hyperion publishing house Hans von Weber. The young publisher published the literary magazine Hyperion from 1908 to 1910 and also published bibliophile books in limited editions. In doing so, he published some hitherto unknown authors and artists and thus helped to justify their success (e.g. Franz Kafka , Thomas Mann , Alfred Kubin , Franz Kolbrand , Carl Sternheim , Klabund ). With the onion fish, the publisher produced a magazine “ for taste in books and other things ”, which quickly became an important advertising platform for the publisher and, in addition to satirical and technical articles, featured a high proportion of advertisers' advertisements (both their own and those of their friends). The original idea came from Hans von Weber and the Leipzig printer Carl Ernst Poeschel , whose printer Poeschel & Trepte also took care of the printing, and it consisted of the April Fool's joke of (...) to publish a publisher's catalog in the form of the first issue of a new magazine, the should not appear further at all. The first issue appeared on April 1, 1909, the foreword closes with the words: “The publisher also wishes to announce that 25 copies of the onion fish will be printed on Tibetan toktubajan paper.” According to his own statements, von Weber actually wrote a few issues on “one in Washed blue dipped gray-looking papers ” , but could not bring himself to actually sell this “ dreadful luxury edition ” . However, one of these booklets is said to have been delivered free of charge. Zwiebelfische are that in the printer language single, accidentally set off a false character in the text, which are due to hand set types after the pressure accidentally to the wrong position in the display case were completed.
Frequency of publication, goals and content
The magazine was published from 1909 to 1925 in 19 volumes with up to six issues. The 20th year appeared in 1926/28, the 21st also in 1928, the 22nd in 1928/29, the 23rd year in 1930/33. The 24th year 1934 (presumably Vienna) and the 25th and last 1946/1948 were no longer with the publishing house of v. Weber connected. Contents and subtitles (including small magazine for books and typography, small magazine for taste in books and other things) changed several times. Walter Tiemann drew the magazine's signature , the covers and illustrations of many numbers up to 1924 were by Emil Preetorius .
The Onion Fish was one of the first German magazines to deal extensively with typography. She published the latest font weights from the major type foundries and commented on issues relating to the use of fonts. In the first 15 years of its publication, the magazine was strongly influenced by the personality of the publisher Hans von Weber. She took up questions from the book trade and book design and based her appearance and aggressiveness on simplicissimus . The authors included writers like Kurt Martens , but also the typographer Rudolf Koch , the bookbinder Carl Sonntag jun. and the editor and bibliophile Fedor von Zobeltitz . The magazine gained widespread fame through several legal disputes that became pending as a result of articles with, among others, Anton Kippenberg (the king of doubles) and the publishers Ullstein , Stielke and Hillger ( field bookstores ).
Offshoots, special forms and successors
Through the form of satire, the magazine encouraged imitation, but also contradiction. So appeared z. B. in the Netherlands the magazine De Zilverdistel which referred to the onion fish as a model. The publisher Hans von Weber himself produced the Winkelhaken , which continued the book design aspect of the onion fish as a magazine for subscribers to the Hundertrucks.
After the first successful years, The Small Onion Fish Culture Scratch Brush Vademecum was published in 1913 , in which various popular topics from previous years were taken up again. The publisher also published the Hyperion Almanac annually, which commented on the most important events of the year from the publisher's point of view.
As a reaction to a defamation suit brought by Weber, Der Arion des onion fish was published in June 1918 - an ichthyological study by Artur Seemann , a detailed discussion of the contents of the onion fish by the Leipzig publisher. The format and appearance of the magazine were based on the onion fish.
literature
- Emil Preetorius (Ill.), Hans von Weber (Ed.): The small onion fish culture scratch brush Vademecum. Hyperion-Verlag, Munich 1913.