Der Sondermann e.V., the association for the preservation of the work of Bernd Pfarr and for the promotion of comic art, is awarding this year's Sondermann Prize to stage artist, entertainer, musician, painter, actor and author Otto Waalkes, who celebrates his 70th birthday this year and who was honored at Frankfurt's Caricatura Museum with the best-attended exhibition ever (70,000 visitors).
The award will be presented at a gala (with birthday cake for all!) on November 11, 2018, the sixtieth birthday of artist Bernd Pfarr, at Frankfurt's Brotfabrik, and comes with 5,000 euros in prize money.
Otto Waalkes, born in Emden in 1948, is being honoured for his life's work. The laudation will be held by the manager of Eintracht Frankfurt, Fredi Bobic. Since Waalkes first appeared on German stages in the early seventies, he has provided generations of humour consumers with jokes, punchlines, laughs and Ottifanten and popularised the humour of the New Frankfurt School. His records were gold-plated, his first feature film "Otto - der Film" (1985) is still the most successful German feature film of all time. Most recently, his "Otto Biography" landed on the bestseller lists. Many of his sketches, songs, rhymes and sounds have long been part of the collective memory and are quoted by heart by adults and children alike.
This year's Sondermann Promotional Prize of 2000 euros will be awarded to cartoonist Anna Haifisch, who was born in Leipzig in 1986. She studied illustration in Leipzig, worked at Kayrock Screenprinting in Brooklyn, and in 2013 founded the comic festival "The Millionaires Club" with friends, which takes place annually alongside the Leipzig Book Fair. Haifisch's first book, "Von Spatz," was published in October 2015, followed by "The Artist," a comic bird's-eye view artist autobiography that previously appeared on vice.com. Haifisch regularly travels between the US, Canada and Europe as a tutor and speaker. Anna Haifisch will also be presented with the Promotional Award on November 11, 2018 at Frankfurt's Brotfabrik.
Previous recipients of the Sondermann Prize for Comic Art, named after Bernd Pfarr's eponymous character, include Hans Traxler, Michael Sowa, Hilke Raddatz and Jan Böhmermann. A scholarship to work on the editorial staff of the satirical magazine "Titanic" goes this year to Paula Irmschler. The total annual prize money amounts to 9,100 euros, making the "Sondermann", the Oscar of comic art, the most highly endowed award in this category in Germany. The three prizes are awarded by the Sondermann e.V., which is dedicated to preserving the work left behind by the Frankfurt cartoonist Bernd Pfarr, who died in 2004.
More info can also be found at: <link http: www.sondermannveren.org _blank>Www.sondermannveren.org
