historic duck

maybe some of you have seen that duck. his name is
ALFRED J.KWAK. from 1985 on until 1990 I worked on
comic books, tv-series, merchandise and tons of more
stuff together with HARALD SIEPERMANN and HERMAN
VAN VEEN. herman had written the stories, harald had
invented the characters.




I remember, harald was one of my students in the university
of essen animation class. he showed me one day some sketches
of a duck and some other characters he said belonged to a story.
so, why don't you do a comic strip with them, I asked him. the
sketches were just incredible, pure gold!








harald was not sure where to start with all the technical
things involved. so, I offered to show him how one page
could look like. his pencil sketches traced, done in nice
black ink, colored with the technique of those days -
my beloved MAGIC MARKERS. and I added some
disney influenced backgrounds.
he loved the test page and from then on I finished the pages of
all our comic books that way, we never questioned how it had
started. and I developed a passion for that little character and
his adventures. I think in 1990 we got awarded with the
GERMAN GOLDEN CAMERA AWARD. the best thing about that
was to sit with Claus Maria Brandauer and some other german
prize winning actors and listen to their funny stories until late at
that gala-night.




it was stressful and fun, the good old days...
but what was more important than these books, plushs and
tv-shows, we both developed our taste for feature films.
how to develop stories and how to visualize the characters
a