Hungarian comics are comics made in Hungary and by the Hungarian diaspora of the surrounding countries. When dealing with Hungarian comics, one cannot separate comics made by Hungarians from translated foreign matter, since in some eras most of the publications come from the latter group and influence comics fandom and the general picture about comics in the country.
The roots of Hungarian comics reach back to the mid 19th century. Until the late 1930s the development of the genre were parallel to current trends in European comics. Comic strips were generally found in newspapers and magazines, featuring works from both Hungarian and foreign artists. Since comics were so closely bound to the printed media, their creators were mostly caricature artists as well. The years preceding World War II proved to be unfavorable for comics as the mainly Jewish owned yellow press basically disappeared together with comic strips (a great exception were children's comics).
After the few years of the transitional phase following World War II, Hungarian cultural politics were influenced by the Soviet Union, as a consequence comics were regarded as "western cultural trash" and were basically forbidden for years. By the mid-1950s comics were tolerated, but with strict compromises. Under these years adaptational comics were made in great numbers. This period lasting until the late 1970s is regarded by some comics historians as the Golden Age of Hungarian comics; the most respected artists, Ernő Zórád, Imre Sebők and Pál Korcsmáros lived and were active during this period lasting until the mid-1970s.
In the 1980s, under a warmer political climate, translations of foreign comics were published in growing numbers. After the fall of the Iron Curtain a large variety of translated European and American comics were published in the country. Although most companies were full of enthusiasm, only few were strong enough in capital to live through the radically altering circumstances of the 1990s.
This course eventually resulted in the American (superhero) comics' dominance by the middle of the decade. These years also witnessed the appearance of a new generation of Hungarian comics creators.
The few years preceding and following the new millennium seemed to be least successful for comics, many magazines folded during these years leaving several fans without comics. This and some other factors caused fans, artists, publishers, merchants to connect on the Internet and set up new foundations for a wholly revised comics scene. The period lasting since 2004–2005 is commonly referred to as the New Wave of Hungarian comics, since comics scene participants show a degree of activity never seen before.
Vocabulary The Hungarian word for comics is képregény (pronounced: keːprɛgeːɲ), a combined word (compound) from kép (picture) and regény (novel). The word was already used in the 1930s,Along with other terms (rajzregény, filmregény, etc.), képregény was used in King Syndicate Feature comic strip advertisements, headings. Such reprinted examples can be seen in Kiss, Ferenc: Kiss magyar képregénytörténet - A nagy amerikai képregénybumm Magyarorszgágon. Published by Kertész, Sándor 2010., second edition: March 2011. but it only became the exclusive term after 1948, before that, képes történet (pictorial story) and other similar expressions described the mediumKertész 1991 p. 50. The words comics (referring to American comics), manga (referring to mainly Japanese comics), bd / bande dessinée (referring to Franco-Belgian comics) are sometimes used in Hungary, but, apart from manga, are not generally in use.One major example: Gyula Maksa, media scientist uses these terms to refer to the three main global comics trends. ISSN 1789-5499 (The word or strip is also used by the Hungarian minorities in Vojvodina, Serbia.)Few examples from Magyar Szó, the main newspaper for the Hungarian minority in Serbia:
History The history of Hungarian comics is best divided along political eras, because of the great influence politics has made on comics.
From the 19th century until World War I During the late 19th century Hungary, as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, kept pace with the European trends, pointing in the direction of what later became known as modern comics. Rodolphe Töpffer and especially Wilhelm Busch (Max und Moritz) were popular and had great effect on Hungarian journalism,Kertész 2007 p. 15.-18. and soon the Hungarian equivalents were born. One of the most important writers of the time, Mór Jókai founded (1858 August 21) and edited a magazine called Üstökös (comet) based on Fliegende Blätter. (During the Monarchy German language Fliegende Blätter was a popular magazine in Hungary, with several thousand subscribers in the country.). Pages were filled with caricatures and "pictorial stories" (called képtörténetek, képes történetek), the European predecessor of modern comics. A short story was told in few sequential pictures, and the text (many times in rhyming poetic form) was placed beneath the images.Kertész 2007 p. 18.-22. Many similar journals existed besides Üstökös. Hungary had a flourishing caricature culture at the time, and many of the greatest artists also drew these early types of comics.At the time cartoonists and artists of this early form of comics did not part yet. For example Sándor Kertész uses the word karikatúrista (cartoonist) describing comic strip artists of the time. (Kertész 2007 p. 23.) The majority of most notable artists of the era listed in the present article can be found as important cartoonists in Hungarian caricature historic writings. (e.g. )
Notable artists This list contains those comics artists, who are emphasized in Hungarian comics history writings.These are: Kertész 1991 Kertész 2007 Kiss 2005 János Jankó (Tótkomlós, October 1, or November 3, 1833 - Budapest, March 29, 1896), originally a painter, but for financial reasons chose to be a journal illustrator. He is considered to be the first Hungarian cartoonist who consciously dealt with this genre. Together with Jókai, they created many picture stories in the style of Wilhelm Busch. His published drawings exceed thirty thousand (accord ing to Kálmán György's cyclopedia: seventy thousand).Kertész 2007 p. 19-23.Gyöngy 2008 Jankó János. p. 97-98. Károly Mühlbeck (Nagysurány, 1869 – Sashalom, 1943) illustrated humor magazines as Kakas Márton, Borsszem Jankó, etc. He created a unique form of the comic strip, that headlined the newspaper, Új idők. These sequential drawings usually did not tell a story in chronological order, they rather showed a current topic from multiple point of views. These very popular works were collected in an individual album in 1935.Kertész 2007 p. 43-45.Gyöngy 2008 Mühlbeck Károly. p. 149. In May–June 2011 kArton gallery held the first exhibition solely dedicated to Károly Mühlbeck's caricatures and comic strips. Ákos Garay (Pusztaapáti, October 3, 1866 – Budapest, January 25, 1952)Zádor & Genthon 1981 Garay Ákos Vol. 2. p. 181. painter, graphic artist, ethnographer. From 1883 he drew caricatures for most of the humor magazines (Kakas Márton, Bolond Istók, Fidibusz, Üstökös, Urambátyám, Magyar Figaró, Herkó Páter), Borsszem Jankó published his works for over 20 years. His early drawings were in a realistic style, later used distortion as an instrument for caricatures and humorous pictorial stories.Gyöngy 2008 Garay Ákos. p. 72. One of the fundamental artists who helped Hungarian pictorial stories to reach its classic stage.Kertész 2007 p. 23. Dezső Bér (Kalocsa, April 10, 1875 – Budapest, October 7, 1924) Graphic artist and painter. Contributing artist, later editor of the humor magazine, Borsszem Jankó. Almost solely dealt with cartoons.Zádor & Genthon 1981 Bér Dezső. Vol. 1. p. 212. One of the fundamental artists, who helped Hungarian pictorial stories to reach its classic stage. He is considered to be one of the most influential cartoonist of his time.Gyöngy 2008 Bér Dezső. p. 24. Miltiadész Mannó (Budapest, March 13, 1879 - Budapest, February 17, 1935.)Zádor & Genthon 1981 Mannó Miltiadesz. Vol. 3. p. 230.Gyöngy 2008 Manno Miltiadesz. p. 139. Graphic artist, painter, sculptor. Started his cartoonist career at Kakas Márton, than continued at Borsszem Jankó, Bolond Istók, Magyar Figaró. One of the fundamental artists who helped Hungarian pictorial stories to reach its classic stage. Mór Jókai (Komárom, February 19, 1825 – Budapest, May 5, 1904.): novelist, editor. Although not a cartoon artist, his contributions to the development of classic Hungarian comics are great. He founded and edited humorous, political satire magazines, Nagy Tükör (1856) and mainly Üstökös (1858), which published the very first proto-comics. Jókai also wrote scripts for the cartoonists, these instructions in many cases included detailed layouts, sketches. When Jókai founded Nagy Tükör and Üstökös, cartoonists were hard to find in the country, therefore he himself drew many of the cartoons published in his magazines. This lasted until he employed János Jankó.Gyöngy 2008 Jókai Mór. p. 101.Kertész 2007 p. 17-23.
Interwar period The comic strip boom of the United States had a growing effect on Hungarian newspaper publishing until the late 1930s. American comics flooded all kinds of newspapers, magazines. Hári János (see image) (1936-1937), a magazine for children is considered to be the first Hungarian comic book magazine,Kertész 1991 p. 44-47. with comic strips on every page. Walt Disney strips, Secret Agent X-9, Little Nemo in Slumberland (Kis Némó Álomországban), George McManus strips and many others marked this period. Not as many Hungarian comics were made in this period, while – for example – Yugoslavia, the southern neighbor, claims this period to be their Golden Age.
During this period the truncated Hungary was an ally of Germany. In 1937 the Minister of Justice began restricting the great amount of pulp literature and yellow press. In 1938 a decree ordered the whole press under the control of the Government. In the same year the "First Jewish Law" was issued.A brief summary of the law in English: Naftali Kraus: Jewish History of Hungary 1919 to 1939. Porges Families Homepage. Among others the goal of these two were to "clean" Hungary's cultural life, to eliminate pulp literature. As the Újság, a Hungarian extremist newspaper, commented in 1938: "These are not at all capable to nurture Hungarian self-knowledge, Hungarian honesty, Hungarian heroism, consequently to nurture the Hungarian folk, national and racial self-knowledge."The quote in its original Hungarian form: "Ezek egyáltalán nem alkalmasak a magyar önismeret, a magyar becsület, a magyar hősiesség, tehát a magyar népi, nemzeti és faji öntudat ápolására..."Újság 1938. April 22 Since most of the comics were published in the mostly Jewish owned yellow press, comics vanished after the law took effect. The situation became even worse after the German troops marched into Hungary: all leftist and liberal media was banned.Kertész 2007 p. 79-80. The only comics of the time were antisemitic ones, from magazines as the militant Harc (combat) or anticommunist ones from newspapers as Egyedül vagyunk (we are alone).Kiss-Szabó 2005Kertész 2007 p.79
Notable artists This list contains those comics artists, who are emphasized in Hungarian comics history writings. Károly Mühlbeck (see previous chapter) Kata Benedek: Drew comics for the children's magazine, Tündérvásár. Her series, Lekvár Peti kalandjai (The Adventures of Pete Jam) ran for over twenty years (1927–1947), and was one of the most popular children's series between the two wars.Kertész 1991 p. 39.