Karl Gabel
Karl Gabel is a comic figure by the Berlin cartoonist Erich Schmitt . He is the hero of several space adventures that were first published in the form of comic strips in the weekly mail and later in the weekend supplement of the Berliner Zeitung .
development
After the start of the weekly newspaper Wochenpost , the editor-in-chief tried to upgrade his paper with a comic strip, based on the example of West German magazines. A partner for the project was found in the already popular Erich Schmitt. He was a fan of science fiction stories and chose this genre for his comic "Die Reise zu den Proximanen" . The "Proximans" are the inhabitants of a planet around Proxima Centauri . This comic started in the last issue of 1955 with a little prehistory, which Schmitt continued with a short introductory text before the story finally began on January 7, 1956.
Although the series enjoyed great popularity from the start, it was not continued for the time being. It was not until 1967 that the Berliner Zeitung decided to reprint the story. But they were not satisfied with repeating the whole thing in the version that had already appeared. Erich Schmitt, who in the meantime had further developed his drawing, was no longer so satisfied with his first version and redrawn the whole story. In terms of content, he changed very little. Significant improvements can be seen in the drawing. The most striking thing is that the all-German team in the original version was replaced by a German-Soviet team. The revised version of “Die Reise zu den Proximanen” appeared in the Berliner Zeitung from 1967 .
The story was enthusiastically received by the readers, so that five years later Erich Schmitt had the sequel "Aloa, the 5th Planet" follow. Encouraged by the great success, Eulenspiegel-Verlag had the book version of the two adventures followed in 1973. Only the second version of the “Journey to the Proximans” was used, as was the case with the later inclusion of the two stories in the very popular “Dicken Schmitt Book” . 1975 followed with "The Space Catamaran" and 1979 with "Auf Tierfang im Kosmos" two further sequels. In 1980 all four stories were successfully published in the anthology "Karl Gabels all space adventures" , whereby the original version was once again neglected. The two final episodes have not been included in the “Dicken Schmitt Book” to this day. It was not until 2006 that the original version of “Die Reise zu dem Proximanen” was published for the first time in a collected form by Holzhof-Verlag.
Erich Schmitt, like that of Kuno Wimmerzahn, copied the figure of Karl Gabel from his own appearance, which is why Gabel's figure is quite unsporting for a space traveler.
Publications
- The journey to the proximans , weekly post, 52/1955 - 31/1956
- The Journey to the Proximans , Berliner Zeitung, July 2, 1967 - April 28, 1968
- Aloa, the 5th planet , Berliner Zeitung, May 2, 1973 - January 6, 1974
- Karl Gabels Space Adventure , anthology, Berlin 1973
- The thick Schmitt book , anthology, Eulenspiegel-Verlag, Berlin, 1968
- The space catamaran , Berliner Zeitung, February 15, 1975 - January 31, 1976
- On animal trapping in the cosmos , Berliner Zeitung, February 3, 1979 - October 17, 1979
- Karl Gabel's Complete Space Adventures , anthology, Berlin, 1980
- The Journey to the Proximans (original version), Holzhof-Verlag, Dresden, 2006