Ivica Astalos

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Astalos at the Zapfenstreich (poem illustration with Horst Tappert , excerpt)

Ivica Astalos (* 1954 ) is a German cartoonist , copywriter and graphic artist of Hungarian - Croatian descent.

Life

After an internship at Fix and Foxi , Ivica Astalos joined the German MAD magazine in 1974 , which he and Herbert Feuerstein would shape in the following decade. Astalos and Feuerstein developed the Great MAD Almanac , which appeared on the second cover page and contained a potpourri of pseudo-serious nonsense texts on historical photos, parts of the dictionary (e.g. Russian-German: Balaleika = football rental), picture puzzles and proverbs. During his first years at MAD, Astalos also completed a degree in graphics ( graphic design in Stuttgart ).

The frog prince (excerpt from a fairy tale satire)

Astalos was the only non-American who published paperbacks in the MAD series, which was actually reserved for Americans such as Don Martin , Al Jaffee or Sergio Aragones , with an edition of 80,000 each. Astalos carried on some of the MAD traditions like The Big Leaflet , Smart Answers to Stupid Questions (both Al Jaffee) or Fairy Tale Satires (Don Martin) in his own way.

After the demand for the magazine declined rapidly in the late 1980s and the paper was finally discontinued in 1995, Astalos freelanced on cartoons and cover designs for Disney paperbacks and also for advertising. His paperback Frittenbudenzauber with old MAD articles was unsuccessful in 1998, but Astalos is now working regularly again for the MAD magazine, which was resurrected in the same year, but which has changed noticeably and bears little of Astalos' signature.

Since 2004 Astalos has been working as an illustrator of nonsense poems with the poet and songwriter DeGie .

Astalos grew up in Marbach am Neckar and later lived in Ludwigsburg . He has lived in Wüstenrot since 1983 .

style

Thomas Alva Edison tests the light bulb he just invented (comic excerpt)
The Platypus (song illustration, detail)

Herbert Feuerstein wrote the following in the foreword of a MAD paperback:

“When I. Astalos applied to MAD exactly four years ago, we knew straight away: this is the right man for us! Unfortunately, however, he did not want the job as a MAD office messenger and instead became a draftsman.
Shortly afterwards he brought us his first drawing: Well meant, but uncertain in the line, with wrong proportions and without any swing.
To improve his drawing technique, Astalos began studying art in Stuttgart. And that is how that typical style emerged over the years as we know it from every MAD booklet: well-intentioned, but uncertain in the line, with wrong proportions and without any swing. "

Indeed, Astalos' figures are often drawn with distorted proportions and seemingly infantile. A dragon z. B. typically has extremely overweight, wings that are far too small and silly spots on his buttocks that vaguely remind of Pippi Longstocking's horse "Little Uncle".

The draftsman dispenses with trademarks such as long noses ( crumbs ), bulbous noses ( Ralf König , Loriot ), overbite ( Matt Groening ) etc. The more the facial expressions of his characters are in the foreground. B. malicious or lustful looks belong to his specialties. Practically all facial expressions are represented by lines in the eye area, horror by a "bone mouth" that is narrower in the middle than on the sides.

Many of Astalos' drawings contain hidden allusions that are only recognizable to the initiated, as well as some recurring motifs: In the old days of MAD, a hung-tongued newt almost coincidentally resembled Astalos himself or the editor Feuerstein , a greedy contemporary was drawn with coins as eyes and often resembled the publisher Klaus Recht strikingly .

The periphery of Astalos' pictures often contains side gags. For example, in a cartoon depicting a stench, an ancestor with a cylinder, painted only on a mural, holds his nose, while in a cartoon about suicidal mood on the edge of the picture a goldfish in a glass tries to hang himself on a rope.

In the more recent poem illustrations, both author and draftsman appear from time to time, whereby the title character from The Platypus ... , who dips a fork into the poet's beer mug, has developed into a further, recurring (marginal) motif.

Books

  • The MAD Book of Technology (1979)
  • The MAD book of fairy tales as nobody knows them (1982)
  • The MAD Book of Technology (with Gunter Baars, 1986)
  • Fries Stand Magic (1998)
  • ... and the platypus lures again and again (with DeGie and other poets, 2006)
  • 40 Crazy Years Volume 1 (2017)
  • 40 Crazy Years Volume 2 (2017)
  • Unpublished (2019)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Anja Krezer: A walk is enough for inspiration . In: Heilbronner Voice , June 15, 2019

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Astalos, Ivica
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cartoonist, copywriter and graphic artist of Hungarian-Yugoslav descent
DATE OF BIRTH 1954