Reinhold Escher

Reinhold Escher (born April 12, 1905 in Hamburg ; † May 9, 1994 near Zurich ) was a German graphic artist and illustrator. He became known as the draftsman of the Hörzu mascot Mecki .

Live and act

Escher learned to draw at the Landeskunstschule in Hamburg and had been a press illustrator for the magazines Nebelspalter , Funkwacht and the Hamburger Anzeiger since 1929 . He was particularly interested in animal drawings, for which he made studies in Hagenbeck's zoo . For the Sunday editions he drew animal stories and joke drawings such as Peter with the microphone in 1938/1939 and a large number of his comic strips Hein Ei in 1939 .

After the war, Escher illustrated children's books such as Die Wichtelhochzeit and Nick's Bride Trip and worked for Kristall magazine . In 1940 he married the journalist Gretel Kirchhoff , whose share in his work steadily increased. In 1948 he became a freelancer at the newly founded Hörzu .

In 1976 Escher retired and died on May 9, 1994 near Zurich.

Creation of Mecki

After initially designing the joke pages and the rebus , he was commissioned by editor-in-chief Eduard Rhein in 1949 to initially design the mascot Mecki as a page filler . From 1952 onwards, full-page comic pages were created. Here, too, his wife Gretel Escher has a considerable share in the success of the work. The figure of Mecki became so popular that Escher drew the first Mecki book, Mecki in the land of plenty in 1952 . The other 12 Mecki books were no longer drawn by Escher, but by Wilhelm Petersen , as no agreement could be reached on the fee issue and the work pressure was too great for Escher. Petersen also took turns with Escher on the weekly design of the Hörzu pages. Since 2006 the figure has been further developed by a married couple. With Hansi Kiefersauer and his wife Lilli Herschhorn, the drawn story of the hedgehog Mecki went back to the aesthetics of the beginning, to warm colors and fairytale stories. So far there have been eight official Mecki draftsmen. For 25 years, with interruptions due to illness from 1958, Escher remained true to his figure and created the drawings for the magazine as a freelancer. He also created the secondary characters in the world of Mecki, with Charly Pinguin, who was not very sensible compared to Mecki, becoming his favorite character.

Since 2009 the Meckicomics have been published by Esslinger Verlag.

Other comic stories

During the Second World War Escher created entertainment drawings for the Wehrmacht. Two issues of Wir Flieger with the black mirrors told in a humorous way about the experiences of an aviation construction company.

In 1973 he designed another comic series called Ramses for Hörzu. Ramses brought it to 2 sequel stories with a total of 30 comic pages. In addition, in 1969/1970 he designed a comic story with the honey bear Brummi for advertising the Langnese-Honig company , which ran over 20 episodes.

Web links

• Literature by and about Reinhold Escher in the catalog of the German National Library
• The draftsman Reinhold Escher

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Gretel Escher died - a pioneer of the German comic scene
2. ^ Exhibition Stachliger Star , article in Tagesspiegel, last accessed on May 25, 2015