Comics as a journalistic Form : Beyond the horizon News

It could be all quite different: the driving force of journalism with the arts in common, and, occasionally, both together can find today. That the theatre provide current information, it is largely history, and also in the judiciary, reporting only isolated cases of the court of the signatories are active. To achieve the alluring Chance, a very different effect, and perhaps a different audience than with a classic news Reportage and media, can use again and again, journalistic Comics. Thomas Kögel has referred to in his Blog, "comic gate" as a "didactic U-boat for lazy readers".

The alluring Chance to reach with the Comics a completely different effect, and perhaps a different audience than with a classic news Reportage and journalism, poses a number of challenges: What is emotional and subjective, creates not necessarily clarity.

Riyadh Sattoufs children's-biographies from the Middle East about Sarah Gliddens war reports from Syria, Iraq and Turkey to Catherine Meurisses very personal work-up of the murderous terrorist attack on their editorial office of the satire magazine "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris, she survived - a fine line between documentary and Fantasy, between Information and Manipulation, these works balance naturally. Fiction and design are alienated, in principle, integral elements of the Comics: illustrators and artists to create their own images, supplemented or acuminate, scenic, and mentally advanced. The authors interweave research, accumulated Knowledge and opinions, generate new frames and covers through their own dramaturgy, cuts, jumps, and associated Material.

The Comic goes beyond facts

Not always is completely clear, whether there are relations - strictly a journalist, defined – reported reality, or but in more Detail existing Research and evidence gaps to fill. Artistically this is so obvious as to be legitimate.

"Claiming and Framing" (Claim frame), as a political Instrument, much discussed, does not always mean the particular interpretation, the Opening or deepening of a topic. That's the beauty of Comic-reportage. According to David Schraven, founder and managing Director of the research office, "Correctiv", which also works with the daily mirror, his new book, "Among the crows" (152 p., 20 €) in the epilogue explicitly calls "a narrative, inspired by actual events". He makes it clear that "the boundaries of journalism are far-exceeded", when he and the artist Vincent Burmeister, drug use, violence allegations, and child pornography in the Bundestag, shredded documents, and the Links between policy and intelligence services to a fast-paced Comic-book Sensationalism of spinning.

David Schraven/Vincent Burmeiste: "crows", shop.correctiv.org

The two have already released in 2013, "times of war" a documentary Comic about the Afghanistan war, 2015 has Schraven with the structures of the neo-Nazi scenes in Germany and investigations into the NSU Terror with fictional and associative elements. In the Federal criminal "Among the crows" he is now the documentation behind it, connects to it and mixed rumored statements, real and genuine-appearing quotes, invented or conceivable situations. In order for jump jets, and he and Burmeister zoom in monochrome-black-and-white images and dystopian moods wild and frantic with recognizable locations in the real Berlin. So you tell a story that has never taken place, which reflects realities and authors and readers the freedom, they think of the future.

in Parallel, also in the case of "Correctiv", two more property Comics appeared: "opportunities in the network" (128 PP., 15 €) by Jonathan Sachse and Vincent Burmeister is a Handbook for activists: In the style of instructions, he portrayed the projects of neighborhood initiatives, NGOs and network of journalists and provides playful opportunities and structures for political participation.

After the massacre. A scene from "Made in Germany". The Graphic Novel to deal with the long-time German...Illustration: El Marto/Correctiv

"Made in Germany: A massacre in the Congo" (112 PP., 15 €) in graphical and text features, the still-effective-colonial relations between Germany and Africa. The Comic starts disturbing manner in the presence of: A Rwandan militia, whose leader lives in Germany, massacred in Eastern Congo the civilian population. The Burkina Faso's artist El Marto has received for the project with the journalist Frederik Richter, a dedicated scholarship of the "Correctiv".

It could, it is likely to be different: more complex and confusing, subjective, and emotional - or more banal: These subjunctive with play journalistic Comics. Unspoken does not make them so often at the centre of what constitutes journalism is always: What do we know - in the gaps and bridges between information; the framings and backgrounds, the need to subjectively be interpreted and the stories behind, in front of and next to each story. So the comic could help journalism, to develop a somewhat atrophied under the Department of media education: the context of competence.

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