Erich Ohser, under the pen name e.o. plauen, created Vater und Sohn (Father and Son) a gag strip that ran for 157 weekly issues in Berliner lllustrirte starting in 1934. Each strip was made up of 6 to 8 wordless panels all on the same page.
David Beronä in his book, Wordless Books, The Original Graphic Novels (2008) characterized the strip as part of the wordless novel genre. We disagree and list it under Dead-end – perhaps an example of the sometime arbitrariness of labelling. Other than its popularity, there is nothing to distinguish Vater und Sohn from the countless other comic strips of the same era. Each page is a stand-alone entry and as a whole they do not amount to a narrative.
Erich Ohser’s pen name, e.o. plauen, was taken from the initials of his name and the town where he was born, Plauen.
The bulk of the strips were published in three booklets, that were released in numerous editions:
- Erich Ohser: Vater und Sohn: 50 lustige Streiche und Abenteuer, Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1935
- Erich Ohser: Vater und Sohn: 50 neue lustige Streiche und Abenteuer, Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1936
- Erich Ohser: Vater und Sohn: Noch 50 lustige Streiche und Abenteuer, Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1938
Printed recto.
Image credit: Buchausverkauf