The cover for issue 2:
http://kaukapedia.com/index.php/Till_Eulenspiegel_2

and 3:
http://kaukapedia.com/index.php/Till_Eulenspiegel_3

and 4:
http://kaukapedia.com/index.php/Till_Eulenspiegel_4

and 5:
http://kaukapedia.com/index.php/Eulenspiegel_-_Lustige_Tiere_5

… and so on.

Owl = Eule. Mirror = Spiegel.

–> Owl + Mirror = Eulenspiegel.

Haven’t seen the book, so I don’t know whether there’s more to it than a pun on the title.

Germany had an more or less intact comics industry during the fifties, with the huge success of the magazine-strip “Nick Knatterton” and the even bigger success of the “Piccolos” (small comic-books in comic-strip-format), especially the ones by Hans Rudi Wäscher (sort of the german Kirby, albeit more because he drew lots of pages, not so much because of his artistic level).

In the sixties, (West-)Germanys own comic book production began to decline; since then there were mostly marvel- and dc-superheroes and francobelgic comics, that dominated the market and left little to no room for german comic artists. Even the Kauka Studios ordered most of their comics from spanish and italian artists, mostly because they were cheaper.

This “tradition” of import-comics went on, and it’s just since the eighties, that Germany begins to develop a sort of >own

I’m always fascinated by the histories of comics in various European countries.The powerful Franco-Belgian school and the Italian school have been fairly well documented — and reprinted — in the US, obviously. Other countries seem to have been swallowed up by the supremacy of US comics, however. Judge Dread and the Beano aside, English comics have made their biggest mark at Vertigo, it seems. I know in Germany, as in most of Northern Europe, the Disney characters are insanely popular, but that’s about it.

There were a lot of now almost unknown comic strips, published in different magazines, for example “Onkel Jup”, “Ferry”, “Zick-zack”, all even predating “Vater und Sohn”. And not to forget the legendary Satire-Magazine “Simpliccisimus” with famous artists like Gulbransson, which was famous for it’s highly artistical caricatures especially before World War I.

And this “Till Eulenspiegel”-comic? Well, like Torsten says, the original folkhero was an rather rude guy, sort of Robin Hood meets Harlekin, from the 13th century. The comic, produced by the Rolf Kauka Studios, left almost nothing of this, making him a modern day funny adventurer with rassistic tendencies (as can be seen in his african adventures).