Comics get art form status

For a long time comics had suffered from the view that they are either for children, or else pornographic, publisher and critic Eckart Sackmann says in a special comics issue of the review Buchkultur for the fair.

But this time, exhibition spaces have been devoted to comics of all kinds, from the sophisticated French or Italian ones, through those of the classic US "superheroes" such as Superman and Batman, to those really for young children.

Birgit Fricke, an organiser of the comic exhibitions, said it was important to show that the comic strip is "a literary art form in itself, dealing with all subjects." "To be at the Frankfurt fair is like a crowning for us," said Steffen Volkmer, PR manager and comics editor for the Dino Group, which is currently enjoying a huge boom in Germany with a "Simpsons" comic derived from the television series.

Selling an average 180,000 copies a month in Germany, which is more than in United States, a "Simpsons" comic is now being launched in France, Volkmer said. The power of children’s comics has been underlined by the raging success of the Pokemon, which too, according to Volkmer is now being overtaken by "Digimon".

Sales of products such as these now well outstrip the classic "superheroes". Television series or films such as "Star Trek" or "Star Wars," and mysteries such as the supposed visit by aliens to earth at Roswell, California, in 1947, have also inspired recent comic launches. For Carlsen Comics, publishers in Germany of "Tintin" and "Asterix" among others, mangas have been the great recent success, currently accounting for about half of their sales, thanks to the Dragon Ball series.

The mangas are translated into German in Germany, but retain their format whereby one reads from what in the west is the back end of the book. But Carlsen representative Kai-Steffen Schwarz stressed that despite this success they would not neglect the rest of their catalogue, and also that they wanted to develop original comics rather than those derived from television series.

On the other hand the Egmont group, which publishes Mickey Mouse in Germany, proudly displayed an adult comic derived from the computer game character Lara Croft of Tomb Raider — only more realistic and more voluptuous. The Frankfurt fair is also a market place for those with products to launch and who are looking for publishers, and for those with a back catalogue of classic comics for sale.