Luzian Engelhardt

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Luzian Engelhardt is a comic series by the German artists Dirk Seliger (text and scenario) and Jan Suski (drawings and coloring). It consists of self-contained albums that are nevertheless loosely connected and build on each other. Eight albums have been released since 2011. The black-humored work makes use of mythology, religion and cultural history from all over the world.

Creation and publication

According to Seliger and Suski, “Luzian Engelhardt” was originally developed as a “funny one-pager series with loose continuation for a magazine”. An average figure should master problems in everyday life. What Seliger / Suski delivered probably did not meet the expectations of those responsible, because the magazine withdrew from the project. Thereupon the two artists looked for an interested publisher and were finally taken under contract by Epsilon Verlag . Their debut album "Luzian Engelhardt 1 - Teuflisch gut drauf" was released in 2011. The second album followed just one year later, and in 2013 Seliger / Suski even released two albums by "Luzian Engelhardt". Album 5 was available for the International Comic Salon Erlangen 2014. The sixth album was released in 2015, the seventh album in 2016 and the eighth album in 2017. The latter, however, was no longer published by Epsilon, but by Kult Comics .

Both artists have another job full-time and usually only communicate via email and telephone. Seliger drafts the plot, writes the texts and produces rough side elevations, which he scans and sends to Suski. Then the fine-tuning takes place via telephone. Then Suski finishes drawing, coloring and lettering the pages.

With the release of album 2, some pages of the work were given a separate reprint in Comix magazine . Part of the 4th album appeared after publication in the same magazine. The 2nd album was published one more time, in a smaller magazine format than a contribution by Epsilon Verlag to the Free Comic Day 2014.

In addition to the albums, there are so far three published short stories by Luzian Engelhardt . All three were created for an independent comic project of the Leipzig comic table. This is an anthology series called Comix & Beer .

content

Since he has run out of diabolical ideas, the devil goes on a training trip to earth. While the archangel Gabriel now has to take over his work as a substitute, the devil tries under his human alias Luzian Engelhardt to build a bourgeois existence. After looking for an apartment and job, he finally works as a truck driver. So that he doesn't have to be on his own, he's got himself a constant companion in the form of a hellish bowel wind called Flatus. When Luzian Engelhardt wanted to show his adlatus how he one day invented democracy, the two of them accidentally end up in prehistoric times and virtually ensure that the dinosaurs die out in passing. Finally arriving in ancient Greece, the devil confuses the mythology there, only to realize that there is a secret exit from his hell. It is now important to close this forever.

The devil and his fart want to return to the present, but instead end up in the Wild West. While Luzian Engelhardt is making the West really wild in the following, a representative of Indian mythology is trying to implement his master plan to prevent the final Christianization. The interests of the devil are already colliding with those of the Indian god. Instead of finally finding their way back to the now and today, Luzian Engelhardt and Flatus are put under the spell of Doctor Faust. The magister makes a pact with the devil that is supposed to secure his immortality. Faust and Luzian Engelhardt then set out in early modern Europe in search of the ingredients of the elixir of life required for this.

Finally back in the present, Luzian Engelhardt tries to reanimate his suddenly interrupted bourgeois existence. He gets himself a new job and works his way up from gravedigger to millionaire in piece time. But no sooner has the devil reached the summit of human existence that everyone should strive for, than the devil begins to get bored. So he almost sees it as a stroke of luck when the Archangels Michael and Raphael suddenly appear to send him back to hell.

But the next time travel of the Gottseibeiun is not long in coming. When Luzian Engelhardt realizes that Sherlock Holmes, whom he so admires, is no longer there, he sets off to Victorian England to find out why Arthur Conan Doyle never carried out his greatest literary achievement, and to tell the story of the most famous detective of all time get back into the right lane. Shortly afterwards, Luzian Engelhardt, who now runs a private detective agency in London under the pseudonym Hemlock Jones, is engaged to fathom the origin of mummies that suddenly come to life in the British Museum. The investigations lead the devil and his companions to Egypt during the Amarna period, where unexpectedly Greek and Babylonian deities also meet in addition to Egyptian deities. Lucian's opponent is the Mesopotamian god Nergal.

After this debilitating case, there is no recuperation in the seaside resort of Brighton, as a serial killer named Jack the Ripper is up to mischief in London's East End. At the same time, the so-called old men are trying to conquer our world. Of course, Luzian Engelhardt, alias Hemlock Jones, can hardly allow that, because the earth is his playground alone. When the incarnate realizes that the archangel Gabriel is actually to blame for everything, it seems almost too late to save the world.

In albums 1 to 5, parallel to the adventures of the devil on earth, the experiences of the archangel Gabriel in hell are told. However, the representative's whole being and striving is only aimed at leaving hell as quickly as possible. Albums 6 and 7 do without an appearance by the archangel. Gabriel's story is only taken up again in album 8, but now much more detailed than before.

Since the 3rd album, there has been an introduction in front of the inside title, adapted to the content of the respective work in terms of form, features and concerns, with a brief summary of what happened on the previous albums.

The entire comic series is peppered with more or less hidden allusions and swipes at all possible appearances of modern pop culture. There are cameos of characters from the mosaic and the Franco-Belgian comic cosmos, homages to popular people from the media world, quotes from literature and film and more. Social criticism also occurs and is often presented in a very anarchic way. Recurring motives here are church doctrines, the behavior of inhuman rulers and Islamism.

Figure ensemble

main characters
  • Luzian Engelhardt, the devil , left hell in the course of a further training course and is curiously searching the earth.
  • Flatus, the devil's companion, is a versatile hell fart with metamorphic abilities and only visible to the initiated.
  • Archangel Gabriel mimes the representation of the devil in hell as long as he is among the people.
  • Ex- Virgin Mary was initially chosen to support the archangel in his new and unfamiliar field of activity with advice and action. Later she accompanies the devil on his earth trip.
Minor characters
  • The death encounter everywhere the bustling devil and will always be recognized by this as such, although it occurs under a variety of pseudonyms such as "Friedwart Schneider", "Fred Cutter", "Freund Hein" or just "godfather" and always some humid runs a cheerful establishment.
  • The hellhound Sado was turned off by Luzian Engelhardt to "protect" the Archangel Gabriel.
  • The immortal Gorgon sisters Stheno and Euryale are washed up by fate more often in the vicinity of the devil in the course of eternity.
Further

In addition to the recurring main and secondary characters, there are also a large number of characters and people from mythology, religion, history and literature, some of which have even made several short appearances:

  • Western mythology: sandman, dragon, unicorn, elves, mermaids, witches, norns, gargoyles, vampires;
  • African mythology: Elegba, Baka, zombies;
  • Egyptian mythology: Osiris, Sobek, Bastet, Anubis, Thot, Hathor, Ammit, Sphinx;
  • Babylonian mythology: Nergal, Ereschkigal, Lamassu;
  • Greek mythology: Pan, Gorgons, Harpies, Orpheus and Eurydice, Sisyphos, Achilles, Daidalos, Oracle of Delphi, Perseus, Andromeda, sea monsters, Atlas, Zeus, Europe, Kronos, Kirke (Circe);
  • Indian mythology: Great Spirit, Manitu, Kokopelli, Mondamin, Thunderbird;
  • Easter Island Mythology: Moai;
  • Christian religion: Archangel Michael, Archangel Raphael, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Jesus, Moses, Goliath, Judas;
  • History: Ramses, Ptolemaic, Martin Luther, Pope Leo X, Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich von Schiller, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Sigmund Freud, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Bell, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Queen Victoria, Jack the Ripper ;
  • Literature: Sherlock Holmes , Dr. Watson, Father Brown, Miss Marple, the Invisible Man, the Sorcerer's Apprentice, Cthulhu Myth (Great Old One).

Narrative structure

While the plot of the first album jumps back and forth from one-pager to one-pager and thus from gag to gag due to the history of its genesis, a more solid structure emerges from album 2. What begins with an alternating change of levels of action between the experiences of the devil on earth on the one hand and the events of the archangel Gabriel in hell on the other, manifests itself from album 3 in the establishment of a framework in which, up to album 5 , the Gabriel action opens or closes the respective Luzian action. In album 4, 5 and 6 there is even a double framing. The framework and internal action are always interwoven. Albums 1 and 5 also form a framework for the first five albums and classify them as a narrative unit. With album 6 a new chapter of the story is opened, which initially dispenses with another Gabriel story. In album 8 the roles are swapped, so to speak. Here the Luzian plot represents the framework for an extended Gabriel plot.

Running gags

  • In a sequence of three panels, various protagonists sit around moping and complaining about the prevailing wasteland, until they are suddenly brought back loudly and unexpectedly by means of infernal fanfare or knocking noises.
  • Everywhere, Luzian Engelhardt encounters pocket monsters he developed himself, who once fled from hell and grew to gigantic sizes in freedom. Here and there the devil also tracks down hellhounds that he left behind on earth, which, like pocket monsters, have now found a permanent place in mythology or legends of mankind.
  • In every epoch, Death runs a bar-like bar and uses suitable pseudonyms as names. The tree of death marks each time the establishment of the godfather.
  • No matter what the Archangel Gabriel does to escape from Hell, not only does he not succeed, but it also falls back on him negatively.
  • Flatus pronounces the said consonant in words with an "F" at the end according to an escaping flatulence, such as B. at "Chefff".
  • From album 6 onwards there are constant disputes between Maria and Flatus, in which verbally the tatters fly.

reception

  • Bernd Glasstetter confesses in his "Comic Review - Luzian Engelhardt" for Free Comic Day 2014 that "Author Dirk Seliger and illustrator Jan Suski [...] created something with this diabolical story that is second to none . There are no role models on which the comic would be based. There is no disrespect this comic would shy away from. ”He also emphasizes:“ The drawings are wonderfully eccentric and fit the story like a fist on the eye. […] In any case, Luzian Engelhardt is a good example of how Germany can develop its own plant and continue to grow. "
  • Michael Hüster describes the comic in a review as "... snappy, with anarchic humor in text and images and far removed from the usual conventions ...".

Album release

particularities

  • The 7th album in the comic series from 2016 is dedicated to Jürgen Günther .
  • In addition to the normal, there is also a special edition and a club edition of the 8th album with different limitations and various bonus material.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Comic review by Bernd Glasstetter on Free Comic Day 2014. Accessed on June 2, 2014.
  2. ↑ a b Seliger, Dirk / Suski, Jan: "Luzian Engelhardt, the eternal troublemaker or from the life of a predetermined breaking point" in: "Luzian Engelhardt - Free Comic Day 2014". EPSILON Verlag, Nordhastedt 2014, p. 2.
  3. ↑ a b c Burkhard Ihme : Devilishly good. Interview with Jan Suski , in: Burkhard Ihme (Ed.): COMIC! -Jahrbuch 2013 . Stuttgart 2012, pp. 102–111.
  4. ↑ Dirk Seliger in an interview with Michael Hüster on the sales homepage about the creation of "Luzian Engelhardt". Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  5. ↑ Information on “Luzian Engelhardt 1-7” on the Epsilon publishing house homepage. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  6. ↑ Information on “Luzian Engelhardt 8” on the Kult Comics publisher's website. ( Memento of the original from August 4, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 8, 2017. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kultcomics.net
  7. ↑ Comix 10/2012, Verlag Jurgeit, Krismann & Nobst; Berlin, pp. 43-49
  8. ↑ Comix 01/2014, Verlag Jurgeit, Krismann & Nobst; Berlin, pp. 11-18
  9. ↑ Seliger, Dirk / Suski, Jan: "Luzian Engelhardt - Free Comic Day 2014". EPSILON Verlag, Nordhastedt 2014.
  10. ↑ "Comix & Beer III-IV", comic table Leipzig 2012–2013.
  11. ^ Review by Michael Hüster of "Luzian Engelhardt 4" on the sales homepage. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  12. ↑ Information on special editions of “Luzian Engelhardt 8” on Luzian Engelhardt's homepage. ( Memento of the original from August 11, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 8, 2017. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.luzianengelhardt.de