Martin Tazl, The yps illustrator
From 2013 to 2018 I drew the Yps & Co comics
of the YPS magazine of the Egmont Ehapa publishing house.
When the cult YPS magazine was relaunched in 2012, I joined as a comic artist a few months later and developed a story strategy to bring the main characters "Yps & Co" (Kangaroo Yps, Mouse Kaspar, Frog Patsch and Bird Willi) into the present and prepare them for the future.
With my first comic story, I also invented the "celebrity comics" for YPS, which regularly made headlines. My first celebrity partner for these stories was actress Simone Thomalla.
Some of my drawn cover images for the YPS magazine
Scene from one of my comic stories: In my own drawing style of the checkered kangaroo, I placed the yellow check pattern over the body to fit. The original depiction of Yps consisted of a rigid 2D check pattern that simply didn't follow the contours of the body and had bothered me ever since I was a Yps fan myself as a child. As an adult artist, I was finally able to give him the surface I'd always been missing.
ALLE yps-Ausgaben mit meinen comic-stories
The titles of my comic stories for YPS in chronological order (since #1262):
■ Showdown at the North Pole
■ Burning asphalt
■ Eight Fists for Rio
■ The crazy bishop with the crazy look
■ The Temple of Karos
■ All hell breaks loose on the Ku'damm
■ The Mistmaker's Revenge
■ Viva Las Vegas!
■ Back to the eighties
■ Cave of Oblivion
■ Escape into the twentieth century
■ The Fall of Overlook House (also the last issue of YPS magazine).
My YPS COMICS in the press and on TV
The fact that YPS was now publishing my own new, cheeky stories, written by me and featuring German celebrities, was a welcome distraction for the media landscape from the real news. Over the years, many well-known print magazines, TV news programs, and online media outlets have reported on my work as a comic creator and illustrator of the "New Adventures of YPS & Co."
The BILD newspaper always enjoyed my YPS comics, especially my inclusion of Simone Thomalla and Wendler. But my work with celebrity comics wasn't the only one to receive attention at BILD—TV magazines from "RTL Explosiv" to "WDR Lokalzeit" to "SAT.1 News" also found my comics funny.
CELEBRITIES IN THE YPS COMICS
Two pages from my first YPS comic story from 2013 with Simone Thomalla as a celebrity cameo.
Even before Donald Trump was elected US President for the first time and was in the party primary campaign, I integrated Donald Trump as a sidekick in my comic story.
The wasteful, showy bishop also found his place in my stories.
In my celebrity comics I "processed" the following celebrities, among others:
Simone Thomalla ‣ The Weiner ‣ The Posh Bishop of Limburg ‣ Donald Trump ‣ Boris Becker ‣ Jan Köppen ‣ Guido-Maria Kretschmer ‣ Dolly Parton ‣ Michael Douglas ‣ Sebastian Vettel ‣ Wolfgang Niersbach ‣ Sepp Blatter ‣ Kaiser Franz ‣ Kalle Rummenigge ‣ Pep Guardiola ‣ Peter Gauweiler ‣ Sylvie Meis ‣ Karl Lagerfeld ‣ Uli Hoeneß ‣ Dieter Bohlen ‣ Heino ‣ Roberto Blanco ‣ Jürgen Drews ‣ Michelle Hunziker ‣ Mehsut Özil ‣ Arnold Schwarzenegger ‣ Peter Ustinov ‣ Hubert Kah ‣ Walter Freiwald ‣ Martin Winterkorn ‣ Vural Öger ‣ Judith Williams ‣ Frank Thelen ‣ Jochen Schweizer ‣ Michael J. Fox ‣ Christopher Lloyd ‣ Jan Delay ‣ Jogi Löw ‣ Bud Spencer ‣ Terence Hill ‣ Thomas Middelhoff ‣ Richard Kiel ‣ ... and the nameless drinker who always wanted to be a celebrity but never became one.
