Werner (comics)
Encyclopedia
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
, appearing in a number of German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s and animated films. He was created by Brösel
Rötger Feldmann
Rötger Feldmann , aka Brösel, is a German comic book artist.He is most famous for creating the character Werner.- External links :*...
(Rötger Feldmann). Werner is the most successful German comic character of all time with over 10 million books sold and over 13 million film admissions. At almost 5 million admissions in Germany, the first movie, Werner Beinhart (1990), is Germany's third most commercially successful film of the 1990s on the German domestic market, and #14 of Germany's most successful domestic market films of all time.
Prior to Oder Was?, the first standalone Werner book published in 1981, since the late 1970s the Werner comics appeared in the German satirical magazine Pardon. Indeed, Oder was? was but a collection of the Werner comics that had been published in Pardon by then.
The Werner books are known for their anarchic humour, often based on Northern German dialect and pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
s. Standard High German
Standard German
Standard German is the standard variety of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
is rarely spoken in the books, when it is used it is usually to portray the speaker as overtly formal and square, whereas most characters employ accents and dialects placed in a lingual continuum between the common modern Northern pronunciation of High German (as it originated in its purest form in and around the city of Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
) and hardcore Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
, although the latter is mostly a dying language in reality.
Werner
The character of Werner is based on Brösel's and his brother Andi's experiences. Werner's life is that of an unemployed bikerMotorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
that consists of souping up his motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
and consuming large amounts of beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
(known as Bölkstoff in the comics). Both regularly gets him in trouble with the police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
and the German vehicle safety agency TÜV
Tuv
Tuv may refer to the following geographical locations:*Töv Province in Mongolia*Tuv in Hemsedal municipality, Buskerud, Norway*Tuv in Bodø municipality, Nordland, NorwayTUV may also refer to the following:*Tuvalu, a Pacific Island nation...
who due to their expressed incompetency and imbecility are usually ignored and duped by Werner. In the movies, Werner is voiced by Northern German band Torfrock
Torfrock
Torfrock is a German rock group founded by Klaus Büchner and Raymond Voß in 1976. With their Northern German identity, they are notable for keeping alive the native Low German language in their lyrics...
's singer Klaus Büchner (whereas Torfrock also wrote the full original soundtrack of the first movie, and partly did for the sequels as well).
Röhrich
In his younger years, Werner was apprentice to plumberPlumber
A plumber is a tradesperson who specializes in installing and maintaining systems used for potable water, sewage, and drainage in plumbing systems. The term dates from ancient times, and is related to the Latin word for lead, "plumbum." A person engaged in fixing metaphorical "leaks" may also be...
Meister
Meister
Meister means master in German . The word is akin to maestro. Many modern day German police forces use the title Meister. During the Second World War, Meister was the highest enlisted rank of the Ordnungspolizei.Meister has been borrowed into English slang, where it is used in compound nouns...
Walter Röhrich - the situations and characters in these stories are based on Brösel's brother Andi's apprenticeship years. In the movies, Röhrich is voiced by Andi, based upon the parodies he had done of his plumber Meister in real life ever since his apprenticeship.
Due to the master craftsman being a dim-witted, crackpot tyrant, the Röhrich stories involve a lot of slapstick and comical relief. As written by Thomas Platt in the making-of book to the first movie Werner Beinhart, Röhrich's explosive plumbing works "usually end in devastation rather than installation" ("Explosion statt Installation"), for indeed Röhrich's working sites often look like hit by an airstrike when he is done accidentally blowing up whole buildings or covering city blocks in sewage content. In Werner - Volles Rooäää!!!, Röhrich even manages to accidentally launch a client into outer space.
In-between Röhrich and Werner in rank is Röhrich's journeyman
Journeyman
A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....
Eckat (from "Eckhardt"). Eckat is considerably smarter than Röhrich and occasionally he jokes with Werner about Röhrich's incompetency behind his back, but Eckat is mostly loyal to his Meister whenever Röhrich is around.
It's not quite clear though whether Werner's apprenticeship years are really a thing of the past as stories involving occasional working for Röhrich remain a mainstay within the Werner comics.
Röhrich's full company name (or company slogan) is Firma Röhrich, Gas, Wasser, Scheiße ("Röhrich company - Gas, water, shit"); the latter three words (Gas, Wasser, Scheiße) have become a humorous synonym for plumbing companies and plumbing works in Northern German slang due to the first movie's popularity. A common catchphrase of Röhrich's is "Ich glaub', die Russen sind da!" (approximately "The Russians are coming!") which has become a phrase synonymous to "the end of the world" in German since WWII, but Röhrich even goes so far as that he has Werner and Eckat seek for imaginary "Russians" hiding in his cellar.
MC Klappstuhl
Werner is a member of the biker and rockerRocker (subculture)
Rockers, leather boys or ton-up boys are a biker subculture that originated in the United Kingdom during the 1950s. It was mainly centered around British cafe racer motorcycles and rock and roll music....
club MC Klappstuhl led by their Präsi (short for Präsident, "president") partly based upon band Torfrock's guitarist and singer Raymond Voss (who also voices the Präsi in the movies). Due to his choleric temper, the Präsi has little tolerance for cops or other people hindering them in their free-wheeling biker lifestyle. Being a roughneck and firebrand better not to mess with, when angered he will stereotypically bellow out that he'll "count to one" and then he and his gang will wreck the place down ("Ich zähl' bis oins, und denn is Achterbahn!") - which usually happens on the spot. In more recent stories, the Präsi even partly turns into a werewolf for comical effect during his notorious anger fits. If the Präsi gets too much out of control, several MC Klappstuhl members have to hold him down and feed him Sago
Sago
Sago is a starch extracted in the spongy center or pith, of various tropical palm stems, Metroxylon sagu. It is a major staple food for the lowland peoples of New Guinea and the Moluccas, where it is called saksak and sagu. A type of flour, called sago flour, is made from sago. The largest supply...
as a kind of rage antidote.
Other members of MC Klappstuhl include Röhre (lit. "Tube") who modified his bike into a mobile coffee machine (in order to cure common beer hangovers), and Walze ("Barrel") who drives a large mobile beer tub.
Other recurring characters
Andi is Werner's brother, basically a comic-book version of Brösel's real-life brother of the same name (who also voices Andi in the movies).Bruno and Helmut are the series' commonly appearing two police officers. A kind of Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
pairing, Bruno is short, chubby, and very anal about all kinds of laws and regulations, while getting Werner and Andi locked up for any of their various misdemeanors (such as speeding, drunk driving, and illegal vehicle modifications) is his eternal dream, whereas Helmut is tall, skinny, and asinine, usually helpless when he is not ordered around by Bruno. Considering himself righteous law incarnate ("denkt, er ist der Staat", as the official Werner website puts it), pedantic Bruno is scared only by the Präsi. Their characters are illustrated well in a short story included in Werner Eiskalt, where Bruno orders Helmut to "measure the phon
Phon
The phon was proposed in DIN 45631 and ISO 532 B as a unit of perceived loudness level LN for pure tones by S. S. Stevens.-Definition:The purpose of the phon scale is to compensate for the effect of frequency on the perceived loudness of tones...
volume" of Werner's chopper bike's tail pipe in order to prove that it violates disturbance
Disturbing the Peace
Disturbing the Peace is the second studio album by Alcatrazz, and is the only one featuring Steve Vai on guitar. One of the singles, God Blessed Video, can be found on the fictional radio station, V-Rock, on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Weeks on Chart: 7, Peak: #133...
regulations. Helmut then uses a folding rule to measure the flame and smoke shooting from the pipe, and loyally reports to his superior Bruno that it's "ten meters fifty of phon".
Gyro Gearloose
Gyro Gearloose is a fictional character, an anthropomorphic chicken created by Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company. He is part of the Scrooge McDuck universe, appearing in comic book stories as a friend of Donald Duck, Scrooge and anyone who is associated with them. He was also a frequent star...
of vehicle modifications, engineering, and repairing, he wears a red overall and is usually seen with welding equipments, welder's goggles, and a wrench. Ölfuß is based upon a real-life acquintance of Brösel and Andi with the same nickname, but also on real-life Andi's passion for weird metal engineering, a feature which Andi's comic persona lacks. Ölfuß, both in real life and in the comics, is also the mastermind behind the Red Porsche Killer, a drag-bike with 4 Horex
Horex
Horex is a German motorcycle manufacturer. It was founded in 1920 by the Rex glassware company, which conflated Homburg and Rex to create the brand name. The headquarter was in Bad Homburg....
-engines, and the Dolmette, with 24 Dolmar
Dolmar
Dolmar GmbH is one of the oldest manufacturers of portable gasoline chainsaws and is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. The company founder, Emil Lerp, developed in 1927 the "type A" saw, which weighed 125 lb and required two men to operate...
Chainsaw-engines.
Holgi, based upon another real-life acquintance of the Feldmann brothers, is Werner's and Andi's rival. Holgi is a fanatic Porsche
Porsche
Porsche Automobil Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche SE a Societas Europaea or European Public Company, is a German based holding company with investments in the automotive industry....
lover, considering his car far superior to any motorbike as those fancied by most other characters in the series. In fact, above-mentioned Red Porsche Killer was designed especially for a race against Holgi that first occurred in the comic book Werner Eiskalt (1985), and in 1988 even became a real-life event between Brösel and Holgi with thousands of Werner fans gathering for the race at Hartenholm
Hartenholm
Hartenholm is a municipality in the district of Segeberg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany....
.
Books
Movies
- Werner - Beinhart! (1990)
- Werner - Das muss kesseln! (1996)
- Werner - Volles Rooäää!!! (Fäkalstau in Knöllerup) (1999)
- Werner - Gekotzt wird später! (2003)
- Werner - Eiskalt! (2011)
External links
- Official site (in German)
- Korn, Thomas (1999). Werner III -- A Movie Triple or a German Culture Study?, ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 4.4 - JULY 1999, English essay on the Werner series and franchise, published on the occasion of the third film's release