Round anniversary: ​​The cult comic “Yps” is back

“Yps” is back at the kiosk. The occasion is the 50th birthday of the cult magazine. The special edition with the running number 1284 comes as a double pack: Issue one is a retro magazine about childhood in the 1970s and 1980s. The second booklet is built as in the early years. The issue will be traded on September 4 for 8.99 euros.

In the classic “YPS” there is a reunion with the comic heroes “Yps, Kaspar, Patsch and Willy”, the “Yps television team Yinni + Yan”, “Pif and Hercules” and “Ben’s band”. There are also puzzles and of course a gimmick. This time it is a decision finder: a dart game with magnetic arrows.

Comedian and radio play heroes about their “YPS” experiences

In the other issue, celebrities remember: Comedian Michael “Bully” Herbig, cartoonist Michael Holtschulte, television critic and comedian Oliver Kalkofe as well as criminal biologist Mark Benecke talk about her memories of the magazine and her personal experiences with the gimmicks and the zeitgeist at the time when “Yps” experienced his heyday.

Radio playing director Heikedine Körting and the “The Drei ???”-spokesman Oliver Rohrbeck tell of the golden age of the radio play cassette and “Yps” player Hannelore Müller-Scherz talks about the time and creation of the famous kangaroo mascot.

In 1975 “YPS” came onto the market as a children’s magazine with many comics in West Germany. The trademarks were the peculiar toys or surprises that each booklet as a bonus side dishes. The makers shaped the word “Gimmick”, which is now even in the Duden (“the or the”).

Solarzeppelin and primeval crayfish

These countless different gimmicks included, for example, so-called primeval crabs, which could be poured into an aquarium as a powder and which moved into contact with water.

There was “the trick box”, with which you could make small items disappear. In the magazine there was also a floating Solarzeppelin. And there was “the detective glasses with the spy mirrors”, which showed the wearer what happened behind his back.

“Yps” – founded based on the model of a communist youth magazine from France – appeared in the Federal Republic from 1975 to 2000. At the best times in the 70s and 80s, “YPS” had more than 400,000 copies, long before it was finally stopped. Since then there have been new editions and special editions every few years.