Ally Sloper, Weary Willy and Tired Tim were the heroes of British comics in England at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Now they are making a comeback: the "Wonderfully Vulgar" exhibition at the University Library presents a piece of comic history.
The pages of the large-format booklet are slightly yellowed as Kevin Carpenter carefully turns them. Lazybones, swindlers and drunkards can be found in it - the "depraved", the "vulgar" comic heroes in England at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Now the largest collection of original sheets and booklets of British comics can be seen in the university library.
Under the title "Wonderfully Vulgar - British Comics from 1873 to 1939", visitors can view extracts from the collection in the foyer of the library from 14 March to 10 May. "All the exhibits are part of a collection totalling 5,000 early British comics. It is the largest exhibition of comics from this period outside the UK. We are proud that they are in the possession of Oldenburg University Library," says Heike Andermann, Deputy Director of the University Library.
The exhibits reflect important stages in the development of the comic genre - from early borrowings from illustrators such as Wilhelm Busch to the turmoil of the First World War and the adventure comics of the 1930s. The English specialist Dr Kevin Carpenter has curated "Wonderfully Vulgar" and will open the exhibition on Thursday, 14 March at 7 p.m. in the library hall with the lecture "The Unsung Heroes of British Comics".
The collection was acquired on Carpenter's initiative in the 1980s. "At the time, comics were often labelled as 'trash', as 'cheap' and 'spoilt'; in a word, they were considered 'vulgar'. Nevertheless - or precisely because of this - they were read with great enthusiasm. Looking back on his childhood in London in the 1890s, Charlie Chaplin called them a source of entertainment and inspiration and pointedly described them as 'wonderfully vulgar'," says Carpenter. The expert on the international comic scene has also designed the exhibition of the same name on the Internet - with high-quality digitised comic pages from the University Library.
The internet exhibition will also be launched on 14 March: www.wonderfullyvulgar.de. It makes large parts of the collection permanently accessible. The exhibition is a joint project of the University Library and the Institute of English and American Studies.