He would rather build paper airplanes than hit the keys in the office. Sticks his tongue out at other parents while the son is embarrassed in the buggy. Fights with another father for the right to sit on the rocking animal. The anarcho papa in “Papa Does Everything Wrong” (Reproduction, 32 pp., € 10, Reading age: 3+)the third children’s book by the successful comic artist Markus Witzel aka Mawil (“Kinderland”, “Lucky Luke Saddles”) is the stark opposite of a pedagogically correct and emotionally balanced father.
Mawil has come up with an insane role reversal and happily shreds the constants of everyday family life. We experience a grown man who works, takes his son to daycare and reads to him in the evenings, but his nature is still deep in the best defiant age. A plea for the child in man? A bold take on the stubborn misconception that only mothers know what is good for a child?
Dig deep interpretatively is nice, but it’s only half the fun of simply surrendering wholeheartedly to the enjoyment of each and every full-page image. In it, the father really torpedoes every attempt by his caring son to navigate the two of them smoothly through the day.
To that: not a word. Nowhere. There are no speech bubbles or other texts – they are not necessary either. In action-packed scenes, the heroes rush, stagger, stumble, fall and splash thanks to Mawil’s dynamic, usual scrawling strokes through a brightly colored world of colors with lovingly designed details.
He illuminates the rituals of family life – such as eating together at the table, bathing or going to bed – with a dissecting gaze down to the most absurd angles. His pictures with their three-dimensional depth effect literally suck you into the scenery: Dad falling into the excavation pit, jostling along the escalator, on a diving course in the ball pool.
The fun factor for little readers is guaranteed to be great, because they can enjoy the comical and chaotic cosmos of father and son even without a reader. Parents also get their money’s worth. Who hasn’t dreamed of taking revenge for all the freaks and bitching of the little ones in a completely immature way?
[Mawils Werk wird auf dem 20. Internationalen Comic-Salon (16.-19.6.) mit einer Ausstellung und zahlreichen Veranstaltungen gewürdigt, bei denen man den Zeichner live erleben kann.]
The anarchic, rebellious element of Mawil’s comic is in common with two other well-known father-child stories. eo plauen’s title heroes in the comic classic “Father and Son” also remain speechless, refusing a conformist world and defying rules and authorities.
Breaking taboos with relish, the dad in Guy Delisle’s anti-counselors “for bad fathers” also shimmy through everyday life, daddling and munching on sweets. Did the artists incorporate their own experiences as parents? Without question, however, the three have succeeded in creating impressive father figures, timeless and lifelike characters with all their contradictions.
