Marc & Penny
Marc & Penny , subtitle: Adventure - Handicrafts - Painting - Rätselspaß , was a children's and youth magazine that was published by DG Verlag and sold to the cooperative banks . It was distributed free of charge to young Volksbank and Raiffeisenbank customers as an advertising medium. The magazine was published monthly with an average circulation of 500,000 copies, each in October with a higher edition of the special edition “Prize contest for World Savings Day”. The first edition is from April 1981; by the time the magazine was discontinued in June 2007, over 300 issues had been published. Today the two figures are part of the VR-Primax series . The name of the magazine alluded to the Deutsche Mark and the Pfennig .
By December 2003 the magazine had a length of 16 pages. The format was 28 by 19 centimeters.
editorial staff
Marc & Penny was managed by Ilona Waldera, who was the magazine's only editor at the time, until the end of 2003. She came up with the idea and concept of the magazine. With a few exceptions, all of the texts in the total of 273 issues were written by her. She is the author of the Marc - & - Penny comics as well as the subsidiary series. Between the beginning of 2004 and June 2007, the Redkon agency took over the editing . This led u. a. to a significant expansion and upgrading of the editorial part, for example with authentic reports and surveys among children.
Illustrators
The illustrations for the Marc - & - Penny stories and cover pictures were made by Frank Lüdicke. Other regular illustrators were Rudi Döpper (Zezilia Zucker, Plüsch-Paule), Heinz Fechner (News from Hasendorf, Susi Super) and Georg Zemann (Liesel Schnatter, Mister Pfiffig as well as Easter and Christmas stories.)
Waldera had already worked with a large number of illustrators, including Frank Lüdicke, Rudi Döpper, Heinz Fechner and Georg Zemann, during her time at Bastei-Verlag . She became aware of others, like Timmermann, through his book illustrations. When Waldera moved to DG-Verlag for Marc & Penny, she brought the illustrators to DG-Verlag and hired them for the magazine.
Frank Lüdicke was commissioned to develop the Marc & Penny stories because Waldera's drawing style seemed suitable for her characters.
The booklet was supplemented by jokes, handicraft supplements, riddles, posters or prose stories.
Style and Development of the Marc & Penny Stories
Up until the May 1994 issue, the stories were four pages long, with a few exceptions. The story in the May 1995 issue broke this tradition and was five-sided. From the June 1995 edition onwards, every story was usually six pages. Only in the course of time did the illustrations with captions become comics in the classic sense. In the beginning it was mainly educational concerns on the part of DG-Verlag that made it difficult for Ilona Waldera and Frank Lüdicke to create the stories as comics. The Donald Duck stories by Carl Barks in the translation by Erika Fuchs were used as a model . This shape made it possible for Waldera to make the stories longer and at the same time gave her space for witty things. However, DG-Verlag never complied with their request for a more comprehensive comic section in the magazine.
The author also incorporated her love for animals and nature. Waldera cared about these values and considered it important to pass these values on to readers, who are mostly children. In accordance with Waldera's view that it only makes sense to convey values through the reader's understanding with the heart, the author tried never to raise the pedagogical forefinger. According to Waldera, her concern has always been to have original basic ideas for the stories and to tell them with amusing pictures. The stories should appeal to readers of all ages.
characters
The protagonists are the siblings Marc and Penny, as well as their dog Bliff. They live in a single-family house in the fictional town of Nettstadt. This medium-sized city is dominated by other characters such as the inventor uncle Peter Rührfix, Hauptwachtmeister Schnapp, the crook Petunia van Pippel (later Pauline Pippelstein), the villain August Mobil, the crook brothers Pitti and Fietje Muck (later Pitti and Fritz Muck), the multi-billionaire Hugdietrich Schotter (later Hugo Schotter), the master hairdresser Lars-Dieter Locke, the neighbor Natalie next door and neighbor Brüllklotz. In addition, sporadic relatives living outside such as great-uncle farmer Melchior Molke, cousin Eduard or aunt Wilma appear. Nettstadt has a forest, the Nettstädter Forst, and a mountain range consisting of the small and large Butzmann. The rival neighboring town is called Großhausen.
Over the years, graphic changes have been made to the figures. At first Marc wore blue dungarees over a red and white striped T-shirt and red and white sneakers. In the early years Penny wore a red apron and two pigtails that were held together by blue bows. The first graphical changes were made to both in April 1994: Marc changed the shirt color to orange, and Penny's red apron was replaced with a blue mini skirt and a red and orange T-shirt with a capital "P" on it. Another change took place in July 1999. The figures were elongated to make them appear older. In order to make Marc & Penny appear more contemporary, she was completely changed. At the same time, DG-Verlag made Frank Lüdicke to model his drawings on the Japanese manga comics. The soft shapes have been replaced by angular and angular contours.
Minor characters
Little by little, a number of secondary characters were introduced. The most important figures were:
- Peter Rührfix
- Sergeant Schnapp
- Petunia van Pippel / Pauline Pippelstein
- August Mobile
- Pitti & Fietje / Fritz Muck
- Hugdietrich Schotter / Hugo Schotter
- Lars-Dieter Locke
- Natalie next door
- Neighbor roaring block
Sub-series
In addition to the Marc - & - Penny stories drawn by Frank Lüdicke, numerous minor series were also published. The number of appearances in Marc & Penny is in brackets.
- Mister Pfiffig : 09/81 to 02/02. (29, reprints included)
- The friends : 02/82 to 07/87. (6)
- Vimse : 11/82 to 10/92. (9, reprints included)
- Razam - Boss of the Jungle : 08/83 to 09/84. (3)
- The Frömps : 07/85 to 06/88 (8)
- Doctor Snugli : 05/92 to 09/94 (7)
-
Plush Paule : 07/95 to 08/02 (30)
The comic series was introduced in 1995 and was mostly printed on the back of the magazine. In each of the wordless stories, Plush Paule, a teddy bear with a blue baseball cap, got into an awkward position for him. Often the main character freed himself from their situation through unconventional solutions. -
Liesel Schnatter : 04/91 to 12/03 (50, reprints included)
Liesel Schnatter's origins can be found in the Christmas story of 1990. From April of the following year, the goose finally got its own series and made the most appearances of all the sub series. The reason for this could also be the kinship of the attractive goose with the soft heart, Ilona Waldera. Liesel Schnatter strives for beauty, success, popularity, wealth and fame, but is always disappointed in all her ambitions. Your biggest opponent is Mr. Fuchs. -
News from Hasendorf : 02/92 to 05/95
"News from Hasendorf" had a special position in the magazine. The series were conceived as a sequel story. A storyline could therefore last up to a year. - Mister Sherlock : 07/97 to 01/03 (14)
-
Zezilia Zucker : 06/98 to 01/00 (17)
The comic stories about Zezilia Zucker and her friends from Toy Land were always laid out as four pages. Zezilia Zucker is a doll and lives with her doll friends in the idyllic toy land, which is duly governed by a mayor. The main character, with curly blond hair, was created by Ilona Waldera as a gentle protest to the old 1968 pedagogy and its strict feminist messages: “Because I knew deep down that girls and boys are not the same after all. And that 99.9 percent of both young and old girls prefer an adorable candy-colored world to the real gray one. "
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Pohl, Martin: Ways of private literary engagements. http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/verlag/diss/mpohl/FN-Kap5.html