(Die Pflichtlektüre translates to “required reading” in German.  Most of the following links are auf Deutsch, so either use a translation program (Google Chrome does it automatically), or find a friend to help you.)

In English:

The Goethe Institute has a great website for German comics!  (Also includes links to various sites and publishers.)

[Anyone have a list of German comics translated into English?]

The media:

Zack Magazine “The magazine of European comics culture”   They also publish graphic albums, mostly French comics.

myComics.de  A German comics portal, with lots of webcomics!

Comicforum  Yup.  An online forum for German comics!  (And all the other stuff comics geeks follow!)

Animexx.de A German online site for fans of manga, anime, and Japanese culture.

Graphic Novels  A German news blog about graphic novels.

The publishers:

Carlsen Verlag  Along with Ehapa, they are the major publisher of comics in Germany, publishing both German and foreign comics.  They have a large list of manga, which is very popular in Germany.  (Tokyopop continues to publish in Germany!)

Ehapa  Disney.  Asterix.  Lucky Luke.  Moebius.  This is the German division of publishing giant Egmont Group.  They cover both sides of the comics community: kids and collectors (many who got hooked as kids).

Reprodukt   The Fantagraphics of Germany.  Lots of great creators from around the world.  German authors are featured here.

Panini Comics   The German (and European) licensee of Marvel, DC Comics, and most American comics.

The shows:

International Comics Salon Erlangen

(Read my recap of the 2012 show.)

Comic Action (Essen)

[There might be more.  Perhaps Herr Frisch could clue us in with a listing?]

And a museum:

Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst

Currently hosting a 75th anniversary retrospective.

In addition to the greater part of Wilhelm Busch’s complete artistic oeuvre, the German Museum for Caricature and Graphic Art in the George Garden in Hannover is home to a collection of more than 35.000 works by internationally celebrated representatives of the art of pictorial satire. The museum is celebrating its 75th anniversary from the end of September on with a major exhibition of 200 selected highlights from the collection.

Among those represented are such great names from the past as Hogarth, Daumier, Grandville and Goya, as well as popular “modern classics” of the world of humour such as Ungerer, Sempé and Loriot. And of course, Wilhelm Busch simply can’t be left out.

On this journey through 400 years of the art of satire you will come across outstanding examples of the subtle, the cryptic, the critical, the caustic, the comical and the absurd.

OOPS!  Almost forgot the book list from the Frankfurt Book Fair which inspired this post!  “Borders”.  Here’s a computer translation of the introduction:

The comic market in Germany is developing steadily. Graphic Novels appear long been in the leading literary publishers and are available in bookstores with a theme Future.
However, the term graphic novel has still received no undisputed definition.
Some publishers may also be labeled not as comics, the one strictly as Graphic Novels may designate. Literary adaptations, comic book stories, Development novels and life counselors are just some of the successful comic book formats.
In technical forums on the Internet is sometimes heated debate over whether to be better all Comics should again simply just call it that. Also the features section is not always agree with an allegedly unfair appreciation of comics.
And there are certainly borderline cases. Often it is just not quite clear whether it is a or illustrated book is a graphic novel.
Ultimately, however, conflict is driving development forward always. It is time it also comics are differentiated terms. The more readers Comics in its various incarnations ask, the more necessary it is Orientation.
There would be helpful if other comic formats as the graphic novel did not accept still regarded as inferior would.
If you have any more recommendations (either websites or graphic novels to read) please list them below!

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