Busch, Wilhelm (1832-1908), a German cartoonist and writer, is regarded as the father of the comic strip in Europe. He preceded by about 30 years the appearance of the first real comics in the United States.
Busch was born on April 15, 1832, in Wiedensahl, Germany. He studied in Antwerp, Belgium, and in Munich and Dusseldorf, Germany. From 1858 or 1859 until 1871, he contributed amusing sketches to Fliegende Blatter (Flying Pages), the leading German humorous weekly of the day. He followed these sketches with his Bilderbogen (pictorial broadsheets), which were continuous stories consisting of funny pictures accompanied by wise, satirical verses.
Probably the best known of Busch’s Bilderbogen stories were the ones about two rascals called Max and Moritz. The Max und Moritz series began in 1865 and proved a major success. By 1910, more than half a million copies had been printed in German, and the verses had been translated into many languages. The Max und Moritz tales, with their deft, simple style of drawing, formed the basis for an equally successful early U.S. comic strip, The Katzenjammer Kids, which was created in 1897 by the American cartoonist Rudolph Dirks. Busch also produced Bilderbogen series featuring stories about Saint Anthony of Padua, Helen the Pious, Hans Huckebein, and Herr and Frau Knopp. He died on Jan. 9, 1908.
