The Kinder-Kids

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The Kin-der-Kids was a comic strip by Lyonel Feininger that appeared in 1906 for only six months in the Chicago Sunday Tribune .

Emergence

The success of the comics The Yellow Kid and The Katzenjammer Kids at the beginning of the 20th century also brought about protests. Women's associations and religious groups made these comics with their rude and sometimes offensive depictions, with stories about children who did not recognize authority , responsible for the cultural decline of the youth and publicly protested against this " trash ".

James Keely , the editor of the Chicago Sunday Tribune, wanted to counter these protests with more serious, artistic comics. He traveled to Berlin and signed contracts with the German draftsmen Hans Horina , Lothar Meggendorfer , Karl Pommerhanz , Victor Schramm and Lyonel Feininger. He hoped with this to bind the German-born residents of Chicago to the magazine. Feininger's contract included two comics, The Kin-der-Kids and Wee Willie Winkie's World . He moved to Paris, where he drew the episodes that he mailed to Chicago.

content

The characters in the comic are three children of German emigrants who live with their aunt Jim-Jam. The children Daniel Webster, Strenuous Teddy and Piemouth decide one day to run away from their aunt, who constantly tries to give them cod liver oil , and start a trip around the world in a large floating bathtub with their dog Sherlock Bones and the wind-up Japanese Japanski, the Clockwork Waterbaby. With this they travel across the seas, constantly pursued by Aunt Jim-Jam and cousin Gus in a hot air balloon. They get help from Mysterious Pete, who saves them a few times from threatening situations. They land in England and Tsarist Russia before the series ends.

Style and concept

Feininger's drawings and the layout of the pages differed greatly from the work of American comic artists. For the first page he used a full-page motif, and many pictures have large, striking backgrounds. However, his drawings were laid out like motionless snapshots; there is no visual language that conveys speed, direction or movement. Feininger placed his small speech bubbles rather inconspicuously so as not to affect the overall visual impression of his drawings.

Due to the motive of the chase, the story could continue to develop in the sequels. Feininger also took up this idea and implemented it consistently, as individual episodes were not completely concluded at the end, but were only taken up and continued in the next episode. The Kin-der-Kids is therefore considered to be the first real series of the comics.

publication

The first episode appeared on April 29, 1906. The series was discontinued after six months because the sales figures of the Chicago Sunday Tribune steadily fell, other magazines were not interested in a continuation of the comic. From 1919 onwards, Feininger used the characters in the comics as templates for wooden figures.

literature

  • Lyonel Feininger: The comic art of Lyonel Feininger . Hamburg: Carlsen-Verlag, 1994.
  • Lyonel Feininger: The Kin-Der Kids, Wee Willie Winkie's World, edited by Abraham Melzer with a foreword by Dr. Günter Metken. Darmstadt: Melzer Verlag, 1975.
  • Andreas Platthaus : United in the comic. A story of picture history . Alexander Fest Verlag, 1998.