History
Carlsen was founded on April 25, 1953, by Per Hjald Carlsen in Hamburg as a subsidiary of Danish company Illustrationsforlaget/PIB. At first, it published work about the bears Petzi and his friend, which were already successful in various German newspapers. The first Pixi-Bücher were released in 10 x 10 cm format in 1954.
The publisher began its comic program with the first collection from The Adventures of Tintin series. The program was expanded to include traditional Franco-Belgian series such as Alix, Blake and Mortimer, Valerian and Veronique, and The Smurfs . In the early 1980s, the program added Spirou and Fantasio and the adventures of office boys Gaston and Leonardo among others. A few collections were published under trade name Semic as discount kiosk merchandise. The production was discontinued; in 1989 more sets were published monthly by Carlsen.
Under lecturer Eckart Sackmann the Edition ComicArt was founded in the early 1980s, a type of comic meant for mature readers. Sackmann's successor Andreas C. Knigge coined the Comic Program for many years and oversaw the expansion of this division. In 1987/88 the publisher attempted to establish their own magazine named Moxitto, but after six editions it was discontinued. The publisher left Reinbek in 1989 after 24 years, returning to Hamburg-Ottensen. Franco-Belgian comics were then published at the start of the 1990s as well as superhero comics from DC Comics in paperback form. Mainly independent extra editions, so-called one shots, were translated. Frank Miller's work The Dark Knight Returns . received special attention. Carlsen took a shot at publishing booklets series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Godzilla und The X-Files .
Knigge's successor was Joachim Kaps, whose time triggered a manga-boom with the publication of the Dragonball mangas with Japanese reading format (right-to-left).
In early 2002 Carlsen bought the name and d author rights of Kleinverlages B&L (the other series belonging to B&L Publishing went to *BSE Publishing*.) B&L continued to publish funny adult comics with Carlsen as its label and went on to add more series. In 2006 B&L expanded with Carlsen Cartoon and Humor, publishing bestseller cartoons such as Nichtlustig by Joscha Sauer and Shit happens! by Ralph Ruthe.
The biggest success for Carlsen came with the Harry Potter book series by Joanne K. Rowling. Before the release of the Sorcerer's Apprentice, the publisher acquired the license for all seven volumes. Therefore, the German title illustrations did not have to adjust to the standards of the rights-holder Warner Brothers. To this day Harry Potter volumes in German-speaking areas have sold 30 million copies.
Currently, Carlsen is one of the big three German comic book publishers, and in the top 10 for children's book publications. The Danish Carlsen Verlag, from which the publisher had originally come, belonged to Bonnier earlier as well, and has gotten more income since becoming part of the Egmont Foundation in 2007. As a result, the name-sharing publishers in Denmark and Germany are no longer connected to each other as companies.
In spring 2008, the joint-venture Chicken House Deutschland (Germany) was founded by Carlsen along with the British children's book publisher The Chicken House, belonging to US-based Scholastic Corporation. In 2011 Carlsen took over the Oetinger Publishing Group of Xenos Publishing Society and affiliated with its label Nelson Verlag (Publisher).
In 2012, Carlsen absorbed *Terzio*, which also owns the famous "Ritter Rost" stories. Musical books about other themes appear in this program sector alongside many other successful musical books with the rusty heroes of the play room.
In spring 2013, Carlsen began two labels, in which exclusive digital books were published: tearjerkers and compelling youth & young adult fantasy from popular genres such as paranormal romance, coming-of-age, and New Adult. Instant Books, which would end up being discontinued again, were for fast and easy reading before all the adult readers with a passion for 'Thrill' and 'Romance'. In the first year, only select print titles were accepted regularly in the Carlsen Verlag Pocketbook Program, appearing between all novels of the label as well as printed issues through the Print-on-Demand program.
In spring 2014, Carlsen launched the new label King's Children Publishing (Königskinder Verlag), publishing books for children up to 12 years, young adult books and crossover titles. Barbara König took over the leadership of the sub-publisher, who had taken responsibility of the narratival hard cover program in children's and young adult literature. The program started with the novel Anders by Andreas Steinhöfel. Books from the program were critically acclaimed and received four nominations for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis. At the end of September 2017, Carlsen Verlag announced that they were discontinuing the *Königskinder* due to the sales figures; after that 42 titles were released in Spring 2018.
Also in spring 2014, Carlsen launched the new adventure series LeYo! and with the LeYo! books came the greenlight for the first multimedia library for children.
Carlsen Verlag absorbed Lappan Publishing in January 2015, which had previously belonged to Salzer Holding GmbH. The comics section is still being worked on by Oldenburg.
The publisher was awarded with the Virenschleuder-Preis at the 2016 Frankfurt Bookfair.
Starting from October 2016 there was another digital label by the name Dark Diamonds in the New Adult Fantasy sector. An older target group was addressed with the release of Dark Diamonds for the fantasy and romance genres. By that time both labels combined and ran under the printing brand.
In 2021, Carlsen founded the label Hayabusa, focusing on the Boys Love genre as well as queer stories, with young women as the target group.
Tokyopop is an American distributor, licensor and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa and Western manga-style works. The German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well as original German-language manga. Tokyopop's US publishing division publishes works in English. Tokyopop has its US headquarters near Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California. Its parent company's offices are in Tokyo, Japan and its sister company's office is in Hamburg, Germany.
German comics are comics written in the German language or by German-speaking creators, for the major comic markets in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, with spill-overs into the neighboring, but lesser, comic markets of Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and German-speaking Belgium.
Yoshihiro Tatsumi was a Japanese manga artist whose work was first published in his teens, and continued through the rest of his life. He is widely credited with starting the gekiga style of alternative manga in Japan, having allegedly coined the term in 1957. His work frequently illustrated the darker elements of life.
The Max und Moritz Award , also known as the Max & Moritz Prize , is a prize for comic books, comic strips, and other similar materials. It has been awarded at each of the biennial International Comics Shows of Erlangen since 1984, and is awarded in several categories, including an audience award and lifetime achievement award. It is open to all material published in Germany.
Goldmann is a publishing house in Munich and part of the Random House Publishing Group, in turn belonging to the Bertelsmann group. They are the best-selling commercial publishers in Germany, especially in paperbacks.
André Roche, born in 1952 in France, is an artist, an illustrator and an author of comics and children's books.
Banzai!, officially stylized BANZAI!, is a discontinued shōnen manga anthology that was published in Germany by Carlsen Verlag, from November 2001 to December 2005. It debuted in November 2001 as a German language adaptation of the popular Japanese manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump, published by Shueisha. In addition to various series from Weekly Shōnen Jump, the magazine serialized some original German manga-influenced comics, including Crewman 3. Issues also included educational articles to teach readers Japanese and columns with news updates on anime and manga series. Series published in the magazine were also published in tankōbon volumes under the Banzai! präsentiert and the highly popular series under the Best of Banzai! label. The name Banzai! came from the transliteration of 10,000 years, a traditional Japanese exclamation.
Andreas Steinhöfel is a German author for children and young adult books, and a translator.
Father and Son are cartoon figures created by E. O. Plauen. The pantomime comic depicts a plump, balding father and his son grappling with various everyday situations. The cartoon was a weekly feature in the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung from 1934 to 1937.
Eckart Breitschuh is a German comic-book artist and author.
Heinz Ludwig Arnold was a German literary journalist and publisher. He was also a leading advocate for contemporary literature.
Matthias Schultheiss is a German graphic novel artist. He is known, especially in France for his works Bell's Theorem and The Sharks of Lagos published in the mid to late-1980s.
Hansrudi Wäscher was a Swiss-German comics artist and comics author.
cbt is a German publisher of children's literature based in Munich. It is part of the Random House publishing group.
Ernst Volland is a German artist, photographer, cartoonist, gallerist, blogger, curator and writer living in Berlin. His main areas of endeavour are comics and comic photos; as well, he has published "fake art". His agency is named "Voller Ernst", an ironic term which may be translated as "total seriousness".
Olivia Vieweg is a German cartoonist and author, as well as an editor of comic anthologies. She created the comic novels Huck Finn and Antoinette returns.
Simon Schwartz is a German illustrator, comic writer and cartoonist. His work is published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Die Zeit and other newspapers and magazines. He has written graphic novels including "drüben!" and "Packeis" and his work has been translated into French and English.
Wolfgang J. Fuchs was a German nonfiction author, journalist, comics scholar, comics author, comics translator and film expert. He co-wrote the first standard work in German on comics as an art form, published in 1971. He translated comics such as Prince Valiant, Garfield, and Mom's Cancer by Brian Fies. The translated book Mutter hat Krebs was awarded the 2007 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.
