Birthday: Ralf König is 65 and wrestles with Siegfried

For many comic freaks there is nothing strange than Ralf König’s stories, but he himself is a serious, thoughtful man. “I am a melancholic type,” he confirms to the German press agency in his apartment in Cologne. “If you think I’m the joker, that’s sure to be wrong.”

In the past few months, the world situation has also hit him on the mind. “I noticed that this is in my way with my creativity. That I am no longer cheerful. I can’t afford that at all.” That is why he has reduced his news consumption.

On Friday (August 8th) König celebrates his 65th birthday. In his kitchen there is a large picture with a cow on a pasture – the cover of the album “Atom Heart Mother” by Pink Floyd. The picture awakens home feelings in him. König was born in Soest and grew up in Westönnen. “This is west of Eastern.”

As a teenager, he wanted to draw pig stuff

He had his coming out in 19th “today relatively late, but pretty normal at the time. Then I moved to Dortmund and had my first contacts there.” He has been drawn there for a long time, one of the first sources of inspiration was a Wilhelm Busch book in his parents’ house.

At the age of eleven, the comics of Robert Crump (“Fritz the Cat”) fell into his hands. “That totally hired me that there were comics for adults. That was the big bang for me. At the same time, I also discovered the porn in my father’s closet, and then two things came together: I wanted to draw pork stuff. My mother collected it all – to my big surprise.”

Because he only had a secondary school leaving certificate, he initially did an apprenticeship as a carpenter. “I still don’t know how I got it through. But that was East Westphalia, what do you want to do with art?”

At some point someone told him that you could study in Düsseldorf at the art academy without a high school diploma. “Joseph Beuys had pushed through that at the time. A great thought: Why do you have to be able to math if you want to do art?” Then he just sent in a folder, and after that it said he could come. “I was already very lucky in life. Sometimes.”

When he started, there was only HeiTitei jokes

For a while his comics were an insider thing, then they were discovered by a larger left student scene and were on the shared apartment in many places. “Back then there was only discriminatory gay jokes. This Detlef jokes, HeiTitei.” König delivered something else without having had an agenda. “I wanted to tell cool stories that are funny. It was suddenly not so aware that a scene that didn’t have so much to laugh at that time had jokes.”

Only later did the people come to him and told them that they had recognized themselves in the stories, and that made them easier for them.

The big breakthrough came with the book “The Moving Man”, which was successfully filmed by Bernd Eichinger with Til Schweiger. “However, I was reluctant to do with it and therefore reluctant to talk about the films. Others did that.

In the gay scene, a lot has changed lately, starting with the name. “There is now the word” queer “and” LGBTQ “. It took me a long time to learn that because I was already bad in chemistry lessons in remembering these letter chains.”

With terms such as “queer” and “lgbtq” it is difficult

He himself continues to say “gay” and “lesbian” because he is used to it. “I would never say I am a queer draftsman because this word remains a bit strange to me.” However, he also remembered the older gentlemen from the Dortmund gay scene around 1980, who had problems with the word “gay” at the time and instead spoke of “homophilic” or “homosexual”. “It may be something similar now. Suddenly the word” queer “is there and sounds like” transverse “for me. But I accept that it has prevailed – what should I say old man?”

For his 65th birthday, the anniversary volume “Pflaumensturz and Sahnschnitten” appears, a review of interviews, photos and sketches. Meanwhile, the artist has been working on the implementation of the Nibelung saga for two years. But it stalls. “I started lively, and after 80 pages the doubts came: Siegfried really looks how it should? Do he not have to have the crown right? I have an inner critic, he is sometimes merciless.”

He will be pensioned in two years. “I find it strange, but it is also a calming feeling. Although I have a large and loyal reader community: moan – the internet takes over the Internet, everyone only looks into the smartphone, books are no longer really sold. You have to see where you stay.” So that’s okay with the pension. “I will certainly not stop. As long as I can hold a pen and I can think of something, that belongs to me.” Everything else “would be strange”.