Mike Van Audenhove

Mike van Audenhove in 1980 in Ammerswil

Mike Van Audenhove (born May 20, 1957 in Raleigh , † March 8, 2009 in Cavigliano ) was an American / Belgian comic artist . He was best known in German-speaking Switzerland and lived with his partner in the canton of Ticino until his death.

biography

He was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, the son of Belgian immigrants from Ghent . In 1966 his family moved to Switzerland. There he attended the Montana Institute on the Zugerberg as a student . At that time he was already drawing his first comic strips.

Mike van Audenhove (left) in Ammerswil in 1980

From 1975 to 1979 he returned to the USA and studied at Hamilton College in New York. He also had his first cartoon exhibitions in New York and published the book How to Spot a Cartoonist in 1979 . In addition to his comic strips, he was busy with various illustration work. From 1980 to 1984 he lived in Ammerswil and traveled to Sweden , Italy , Vermont , New York , Tennessee , Ticino , the Jura , Zug and Bern , among others . He earned his living with various odd jobs, for example as a baker, roofer, chauffeur and tennis teacher. In 1984 he settled in Zurich.

From 1996 to 2001 he lived with his partner, the Basel artist and colorist Iris Pfister , in Rudolfstetten in the canton of Aargau . Then he moved with her into an old house in the center of Cavigliano , which they renovated themselves. For his regular stays in Zurich, he rented a small apartment in Zurich's Niederdorf . He died of heart failure on March 8, 2009 at his Cavigliano home.

Illustrations

In 1984 his comics were published in the Swiss edition of Strapazin magazine. His comics also appeared in the Tages-Anzeiger magazine , Spick , WoZ and Schweizer Illustrierte .

At the end of the 1980s, he published the comic strip Koch Komix in the Tagblatt der Stadt Zürich, with a chef as the main character. When Mike Van Audenhove responded to the rejection of the Quartierzentrum Kanzlei in autumn 1990 with a comic strip , he was fired. In this context he got to know Esther Schmid, the then head of the züritipps , a supplement to the Tages-Anzeiger . In 1996 she was looking for a cartoonist for the comic page and came back to him.

Mike Van Audenhove finally became known to a wider audience through his comics Zürich by Mike, first published in 1996 in züritipp. In the comic strips, a typical Zurich social situation is processed in a full-page comic. In doing so, he relies heavily on the recognition value of the Zurich city population. For example, the location of the event often actually exists. It does not show the city of Zurich exaggerated, but he works primarily with the situation comedy .

He drew an animated film for the 700th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation .

Exhibitions

• March 31, 2006 to June 16, 2006 - "Zurich-by-Mike" exhibition in the Zurich City Hall .

Awards

• Culture award from the Canton of Zurich
• “Nain d'Or” at the BD-Mania Festival in Corminboeuf .

Comic books

The comic strips Zürich by Mike have been compiled in volumes with the title Zürich by Mike since 1997 . A total of 14 volumes were published. Volume 13 was published posthumously on March 26, 2009, and Volume 14 on March 25, 2010.

• Zurich by Mike . 14 vols. Edition Moderne, Zurich 1997–2010 (Comics), ISBN 3-03731-002-2 .
• Love by Mike . Edition Moderne, Zurich 2007, ISBN 3-03731-024-3 .
• Critters by Mike . Edition Moderne, Zurich 2005, ISBN 978-3-907055-98-4 .
• Kids by Mike . Edition Moderne, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-907055-71-3 .
• The little man . Edition Moderne, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-907055-32-2 .
• Mikes Woerld . Edition Moderne, Zurich 1997, ISBN 978-3-907055-08-3 .
• Totally okay . Lappan Verlag, Oldenburg 1995, ISBN 978-3-7716-1582-6 .
• Totally exhausted. Cartoons to wake you up . Fackelträger-Verlag, Hannover 1994, ISBN 978-3-7716-1574-1 .
• Chef Komix . 2 volumes. Katzenjammer Verlag (self-published), Zurich 1990/91.
• Place there . Chronos Verlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3-0340-0838-9

Web links

• Christian Baertschi: Mike Van Audenhove. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Mike Van Audenhove's website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Homemade by Mike  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Annabelle (journal) , 1/2008.  
2. ↑ ^{a b} Guido Kalberer: No more “Zurich by Mike” , Tages-Anzeiger Online, March 10, 2009
3. ↑ Mike Van Audenhove is dead , 20 Minutes Online, March 9, 2009.
4. ↑ ^{a b} curriculum vitae on fumetto.ch ( memento of the original dated September 30, 2007 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. (PDF; 114 kB), accessed on July 31, 2007 
5. ↑ kdw, Mike Van Audenhove - Zurich's comic artist , article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , August 3, 2006 [1]
6. ↑ News from the Tagesschau on sf.tv of March 10, 2008 [2]
7. ↑ Christoph Schuler, Curious Explanatory , in: züritipp No. 11, pp. 7, 12. -18. March 2009
8. ↑ ^{a b c} Curriculum vitae of Edition Moderne on the occasion of 10 years of Zurich by Mike ( PDF )
9. ↑ ^{a b} Esther Schmid, funny and cheeky commentator , in: züritipp No. 11, pp. 7, 12. -18. March 2009