Zack (magazine)

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Logo ZACK

Zack ( original spelling ZACK ) is a German comic magazine that has been published by Mosaik Steinchen für Steinchen Verlag since 1999 . From 1972 to 1980, Koralle-Verlag had published 291 issues. Although other comics were also published in Koralle-Zack, it is mainly associated with the humor and adventure series of the Franco-Belgian role models Tintin and Pilote , which became popular in Germany through the magazine.

The target group of the Koralle-Zack were male readers between the ages of 8 and 14 years. The Mosaik-Zack, on the other hand, is aimed at a more adult target group, especially the former readers of Koralle magazine.

Coral zag

Numbering and identification

The Koralle-Zack first appeared weekly, later bi-weekly, towards the end again weekly, usually on Thursdays. The numbering was restarted from 1 with each year.

Due to the first publication on April 13, 1972 and the change in the frequency of publication, issues 1 to 16 of 1972 and 6 to 10/1980 do not exist. From No. 41 to 52/1974 the issues appeared as double issues. The last issue of 1975 was also a double issue (25/26). Since the first edition 17/1972 appeared in the 16th calendar week, there is an edition of the first year with the number 53. In addition, the first editions of a year were often published in December of the previous year.

Only from issue 3/1974 did the booklets have a date on the title page. The information introduced with issue 9/1973 on the second cover page serves to clearly identify the editions published up to that point. If this is missing in undated issues with issue number less than 9, it is a 1973 issue, in which the number range 17 to 53 is an issue from 1972.

1972-1974

Zack began in issue 17/1972 exclusively with material from Tintin (licensor Lombard ). From the third issue, 19/1972, the first series of Pilote magazine (licensor Dargaud ) joined with Lieutenant Blueberry and Mick Tangy .

TV series comics

In October 1972 (from # 43/1972), Enterprise began the first attempt to publish comics for popular television series. The material used came from the American production of the Gold Key publishing house . The Enterprise Comics had to be enlarged or rearranged compared to the original publication for Zack, which generally had a negative effect. As Zack editor Gigi Spina explained in an interview, there was a noticeable increase in sold circulation with Enterprise. This encouraged the editors to include more comics for television series in the range in later years with Kung Fu and Moon Base Alpha 1 .

First in-house productions

The first in-house productions were published in the second year of publication. First, Dan Cooper draftsman Albert Weinberg was commissioned, who revised his earlier series Les Aquanautes for Zack under the new title Barracuda . In August 1973, Turi & Tolk from Dieter Kalenbach followed , and in 1974 the soccer series Kai Falke .

Italian addition

Since only high-quality series were to be imported and the in-house production was slow to start, the magazine slowly ran out of material. The comics in France / Belgium were also developing away from their young audiences towards older readers. Since Gigi Spina, the actual editor-in-chief of the magazine, was Italian, Italian stories began to be printed. Commissioner Spada came from the Catholic youth magazine Giornalino and appeared in Zack from October 1973. 1974 followed with Corto Maltese and the Gentlemen GmbH two further Italian series. Only the series about a tricky gang of crooks, produced by the Italians Tacconi (drawings) and Castelli (texts), was so well received by young people that it was permanently established in the magazine. The comic novel Die Südseeballade by Hugo Pratt, in which the later serial hero Corto Maltese made his first appearance, became the longest sequel in the history of the magazine and completely overwhelmed the readership. It had to be completely broken off on page 118 of the work. The Austrian trade magazine Comic Forum closed the gap that had thus arisen years later. The series Kommissar Spada also did not prevail, as it was graphically and narrative with the Lombard series Rick Master (original title Ric Hochet ) by Tibet (di Gilbert Gascard) and André-Paul Duchateau, a journalist involved in criminal cases, which was established in Zack will not be able to keep up.

1976-1988

The magazine lost more and more readers and thus its circulation in the mid-1970s. According to a Spiegel article from January 1976, however, Zack was the front runner in terms of increased circulation with a "reach gain" of 11%. In order to save the magazine, Axel Springer asked Rolf Kauka , who had recently sold his own publishing house, for help. Together with Peter Wiechmann , his deputy, Kauka tried to reform Zack. Kauka and Wiechmann, who could not cope with the structures in the Springer Group, asked shortly afterwards to terminate their contracts. Wiechmann's course was characterized by a completely new concept: away from continuations and towards completed stories. As early as 1974, the editorial team had experimented with the concept of closed stories and devoted one issue each to a complete story by Dan Cooper by Albert Weinberg and one by Andy Morgan by Hermann ( Hermann Huppen ) and Greg (Michel Régnier). Wiechmann's concept envisaged a complete long story of one of the established series heroes or a new series he had brought to Koralle ( Timmi Tambour ) as the lead, as well as several completed short stories, mostly of newer series ( Manila , Kung Fu , Bomm Giovanni , Boogie & Woogie ) per issue. Since the volume of the magazine was only 48 pages, this meant that draft horses like Andy Morgan and Comanche by Hermann and Greg or Michel Vaillant by Jean Graton appeared in brutally abridged versions by about a third of their total length. As a rule, the first pages of the stories were replaced by a short summary that appeared on the second page of the booklet in a column of text. This disrespect for the established series and their fans, however, proved counterproductive. In addition, readers did not accept Kaucasus series such as Andrax , Die Pichelsteiner , and Capitan Terror . The sales figures fell even further. The Wiechmann experiment ended after six months in mid-1976. Then Ralf Kläsener took over the helm at Zack again. The era of the 68-page zag began, combined with a firmer cover, which had not existed since issue 17 of 1974, and a price increase from 1.80 DM to 2.50 DM.

The end

From 1978 onwards, Koralle-Verlag lured many draftsmen from other publishers. More wages and more artistic freedom were offered. This is how David Walker (original title: Jérémiah ) by the draftsman Hermann came into being . In addition, Jean Graton and Jean-Michel Charlier could be won. As a result, however, the Dargaud and Lombard publishers terminated their contracts with Koralle, so that their material could soon no longer be used. In 1979 the magazine expanded with superAS , super J and Wham! in the Franco-Belgian market. These Zack offshoots appeared weekly, from 1980 this also applied to the German Zack. The same series were then released simultaneously in Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. This is what the magazine called itself in the subtitle The great European comic magazine .

After 17 joint issues, the Dutch Wham! discontinued in June 1980. After issue 32/80 (July 1980), the publication of the German Zack was also given up. The French superAS was discontinued after the 87th edition (October 1980).

Series and genres

The focus of the genres was included in the Zack magazine

Overall, all the "Realistics" accounted for around three quarters of the expenditure, compared with around a quarter of "Funnies" such as Lucky Luke , Umpah-Pah , Cubitus , Chief Feuerauge , Taka Takata and Pittje Pit . In 1973 and 1975 the Belgian classic Tintin appeared in sequels.

The "Zack Club" and the "Zacken"

Since the Zack magazine was specifically dependent on its young male regular customers, the marketing department developed a "Zack Club" that was not binding in terms of association law in 1973 at the latest. It should bind Zack readers more closely to the magazine and motivate them to follow all of the magazine's series without interruption. For this purpose, a club pin with the Zack logo and a slogan: "I'm on the ball!" The needle was also intended to serve as an advertisement for the magazine. Membership was loose, however. There was an application for membership that the customer had to send to the publishing house in order to receive the needle and membership card, but no membership fees or articles of association. The four-page Zack newspaper sent to all members was later integrated into the magazine for cost reasons. Another large-scale marketing campaign for reader loyalty was the “Zacken” collection points, which can be found in all of the label's publications, including the Zack Parade, the Zack boxes, the series albums and later also in Zack Pocket Page found and had to be cut out. The triangular points that were collected could be stuck to the designated collecting fields and sent in. ZACK posters, Zack puzzles, a Radi-Cubi (eraser with the serial hero Cubitus ), a Cubitus belt or the Zack-Astro-Kuli, a ballpoint pen with a cover resembling a space capsule, were awarded as prizes .

Foreign spending

  • Zoom (Finnish)
  • Wham (Dutch)
  • superAS / superJ (French / Belgian)
  • Zack (Danish)

The mosaic zack

content

The Zack magazine of the Mosaik Steinchen for Steinchen Verlag mainly prints Franco-Belgian comics, including well-known series such as Lucky Luke , Blueberry , Spirou and Fantasio and Michel Vaillant .

In addition, new series (for the magazine) such as Die Minimenschen by Pierre Seron , Lady S. by Jean van Hamme and Philippe Aymond , Dantès by Pierre Boisserie , Philippe Guillaume and Eric Juszezak , Grand Prix by Marvano and Once Upon a Time in France by Fabien Nury and Sylvain Vallée reprinted.

In addition to comics, the magazine contains interviews, reviews and background information on the comics.

Appearance and numbering

The Mosaik-Zack has been published monthly since 1999 with a print run of around 10,000 (print run, as of 2008). It is numbered consecutively and has a month on the cover. At the beginning the issues appeared in the middle of the previous month, meanwhile the first day of sale is the last Wednesday of the previous month.

The new Zack is available by subscription and from train station book and comic book stores.

Byproducts

Various by-products of the current Zack appear in both Zack eras. At Koralle these were mainly comic albums (Zack Comic Box, Zack Album) and paperbacks (Zack Parade, Zack Pocket), which brought complete stories from the series known from Zack.

At Mosaik-Verlag, the main focus for a long time was on comic rarities (Zack special issue, Zack box) and secondary information (Zack dossier), some of which are mainly aimed at fans and collectors in limited editions. Since 2006, Zack has also been directly involved in the comic album market in Germany. In the Zack Edition series, the comic heroes known from Zack appear in their own album collection. One focus of the album series is the adventures of the Michel Vaillant racing series .

Literature on the subject

  • Markus Tschernegg: That was Zack, Comic Forum special issue. Special issue 11a of the Comic Forum magazine - owner, editor, publisher and viSdP: Wolfgang Alber, Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-900390-01-0
  • Armin Kranz and Oliver Manstein (eds.): Zakundär 1st special edition of the ZACK newspaper ZAKTUELL (self-published), Bremen 2000

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Horror brings Galactus !!" In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 1976, p. 58-63 ( Online - Jan. 12, 1976 ).
  2. ↑ Full-page advertisement "ZACK-Club-Netz", in: Zack, Heft 35/1973, p. 36
  3. ↑ http://portal.pressrelations.de/mediadaten/ZACK-MediaTarif7-2009.pdf
  4. ↑ http://www.comicradioshow.com/Article2989.html

Web links