Sympathetic antiheroes

Equipped with superpowers and ready for destructive "Angry Youth" outrages: In his comic-of-age story, Michel Esselbrügge's characters search for belonging, construct their own identities, but become neither more mature nor more adult as a result.

Born in Bielefeld and having spent his childhood and youth in Steinhagen, Esselbrügge moved to Kassel in 2012 to study illustration and comics at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Last year, he published "Langfinger und Wackelzahn," his first book, which he spent three years working on.

The bottom line of the story - it's not so easy to be youthful. The author addresses important issues that move teenagers: From a sense of belonging and broken family relationships to love, sexuality and friendship.

Esselbrügge describes the 15-year-old longhorn, who is an orphan and self-proclaimed master thief and lives with his dog Wackelzahn in an empty factory building near a forest. Together with the almost-divorced child Max and his stone toad Gunter, they wander through fallow industrial land and adjacent woods, throwing stones at people and destroying the territory of the hostile gang "Logbook Oak." He designs antiheroes to create an antithesis to the hero. "Perhaps the anti-heroes also create a certain sympathy in the reader because they have weaknesses and show this openly," the author says. He also questions social norms and expectations, and does so "without moralizing," he emphasizes. He does this quite cleverly, using fantastic elements and playing with the boundary between reality and fiction.

The book raises parallels to his own youth. For example, he says, the landscape around Steinhagen inspired him. Nevertheless, the 28-year-old distances himself personally from the content: "It's not an autobiographical comic. I would never act the way some of the characters do." What's also striking is that you never get to see the heads of the adults in the comic. He deliberately played with this: "In the world I constructed, the focus is on the young people," explains Esselbrügge. Nevertheless, he says, his graphic novel is also suitable for adults: "I also address the negotiation of sexuality. There are different forms of sexual orientation that I wanted to address with my book."

Esselbrügge explains what is important to him as a comic artist: "In many comics, speech bubbles are not considered as a design element. Then they're just a means to an end, covering up the background, for example. Speech bubbles and soundwords are just as important to me as design elements as the characters or the background."

In addition, he doesn't think consciously when illustrating and just starts drawing. In the course of a working process, the story develops and becomes a whole, without an end being known in advance. He also makes a clear distinction between the two narrative forms of comics and fiction: "If comics are compared with novels, the medium is denied its independent quality and effect.

He has no concrete role models in the comics scene, he says, even though he was inspired by literary figures such as Huckleberry Finn or the Red Zora in his current work. You should find your own way," explains Esselbrügge. And what qualities should an illustrator have? "You don't have to be good at drawing, but find your own way to draw. The illustration should be easy to read and have a systematic approach."

Esselbrügge is co-founder of the Institute for Contemporary Cartooning and part of the cartoonist collective FAN ART. He has previously published short stories such as Orang, Kuti Kuti and kuš! "Langfinger und Wackelzahn" he presented last year at the Frankfurt Book Fair and at the Comic Festival in Hamburg. Currently, Esselbrügge is working on a digital comic, which will also be his final project. This time it's about precarious working conditions in the creative field, which is scheduled to be published in September.

Text: Cigdem Özdemir