Line #20 Creator/WalterMoers


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/walter_moers.jpg]]
2
3	Walter Moers (born 24 May 1957 in Mönchengladbach, Germany) is a German comic creator and novelist, and a regular contributor to the satire magazine ''Titanic''.
4
5	His most famous character in Germany is probably Series/CaptainBluebear, whose franchise include [[Series/DieSendungMitDerMaus puppet show sketches in children's TV]], newspaper comics and [[TheMovie a full length animated movie]].
6
7	Most of his comics feature the eponymous brat ''Das kleine Arschloch'' (''The Little Asshole''). There are also two animated movies.
8
9	Most of his novels take place on the fictional continent of Zamonia.
10
11	Works of Walter Moers that have been translated into English:
12
13	[[AC:Comic books]]
14	* ''The Little Asshole'' (8 volumes)
15
16	[[AC:Zamonia novels]]
17	* ''Literature/TheThirteenAndAHalfLivesOfCaptainBluebear''
18	* ''Literature/EnselUndKrete'' (not translated)
19	* ''Literature/RumoAndHisMiraculousAdventures''
20	* ''Literature/TheCityOfDreamingBooks''
21	* ''Literature/TheAlchemastersApprentice''
22	* ''The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books'' (sequel to ''The City of Dreaming Books'')
23
24	[[AC:Non-Zamonia novels]]
25	* ''A Wild Ride Through the Night''
26	----
27	!! Notable tropes in the works of Walter Moers:
28
29	* AbsentMindedProfessor: Professor Schimauski
30	* AdolfHitlarious: ''Adolf, die Nazi-Sau'' is about UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler having survived in the sewers of UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}, reemerging in TheNineties and utterly (and hilariously) failing to adjust to modern life.
31	* AliensMadeThemDoIt: [[TheGreys Grey]] students force a captured Hitler to have sex with allegedly recently deceased Mother Teresa to conceive a kind of super-human.
32	* AssShove: Pelping, which involves a longish, thin animal (fish, eel).
33	* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever: In one story, nuclear tests in Antarctica create a Franchise/{{Godzilla}}-like penguin who surfs on an ice float to UsefulNotes/EastGermany and starts to wreak havoc.
34	* CallingARabbitASmeerp: The Zamonian festivity Hamouli-Mepp is suspiciously similar to X-mas. (Of course it is - the respective book is a big TakeThat against X-mas.)
35	* {{Conlang}}: Pimperanto ("pimpern" means "to shag"). It's got bits and pieces from other languages, it's the only language in the world that knows three "i"s in a row, and its four most important words are:
36	** "Hoogla" (yes, no, me, you, now, later, please, thank you, good, bad, breasts, weltschmerz, identity crisis, pedestrian area etc.)
37	** "Boogla" (compulsory helmet wearing, penis envy and always the opposite of "hoogla")
38	** "Yoogla" (a description of a state, roughly referring to emptiness in men's case and filledness in women's case)
39	** "Zoogla" (a super-term that can mean anything and everything -- except for what "hoogla", "boogla" and "yoogla" mean)
40	--> "Tu hoogla beautifullo as Frans Kawka!" ''("You are more beautiful than Creator/FranzKafka!")''
41	--> "Youra sausagi es multo bifteckiii!" ''("Your sausage is very meaty!")''
42	--> "In Jordaniii no has hoogla!" ''("In Jordan, there are no pedestrian areas!")''
43	* DirectLineToTheAuthor: ''The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear'' and ''Literature/TheCityOfDreamingBooks'' were described as parts of the autobiography of their respective narrators, ''The Alchemaster's Apprentice'' a Zamonian fairy tale; Walter Moers merely translated.
44	* ExcessiveMourning: The mourning of Princess Diana (accidentally killed by her driver UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler) in ''Adolf'' parodies that in RealLife.
45	-> "Oh, by the way, Mother Teresa is dead, too, but who cares..."
46	* FacialProfiling: Jewish hook noses in ''Adolf, die Nazi-Sau''.
47	** While Walter Moers already has Music/{{Prince}} and UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler as visitors, Music/MichaelJackson comes to visit him, too. He has undergone nose surgery again, and now he has a Jewish-ish hook nose as a symbol for all the races in the world. Again: Hitler is in Moers' bathroom at this point.
48	** Hitler takes the TV cook Alfred Biolek in whose show he appears as a publicity stunt for a Jew due to his nose and attacks him with a wooden spoon.
49	* FootnoteFever: In the Zamonia novels Moers loves to make footnotes which content pseudo dictionary entries.
50	* FunetikAksent: Everything UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler says in the ''Adolf'' series.
51	* FunWithForeignLanguages: "Fötzelek" [[InMyLanguageThatSoundsLike reads like "cunt licking" to a German-speaker]], especially when pronounced the way a German would. While in reality it's a Hungarian vegetable stew or soup, in Pimperanto, it means what it looks like in German.
52	* GagPenis: Implied by the Little Asshole during a presentation in school in which he claims that the erect male penis is 60cm (24") long and weighs 3kg (6.6lbs), demonstrating both with a tape measure and a weight.
53	* GermanHumor
54	* TheGreys: Alien students who abduct UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler to create a new, superior human race with him as the father and the recently deceased Mother Teresa as the mother.
55	-> "[[AliensMadeThemDoIt Go fuck her!]]"
56	* GroinAttack: In the book ''Aha!'' (and as seen on its cover), a girl shows a boy her private parts. Now she wants to see his. Once he gets his scrotum out, he calls it his "nuts". The girl grabs them with her hand, squeezes them and wonders, "''Soft'' nuts?"
57	* HeAlsoDid: Moers' works are peculiarly diverse in that he has been writing/drawing for three quite different audience demographics: Comicbooks for adults, TV for children, and the Zamonia novels for young adults. Fans of the Zamonia novels often know little about his comicbooks, or are even blissfully unaware of their existence. It's probably better for them.
58	** They include [[spoiler:"The Little Asshole"]], which is about a little boy and based entirely on RefugeInAudacity and CrossesTheLineTwice, and [[spoiler:"Adolf"]] which isn't that more harmless.
59	* JacobMarleyApparel: This gets deconstructed to its perverted end. In the story in question, {{God}} himself decided that the angels (former humans) he uses as messengers are this. So we meet an angel in a crotch-free black rubber suit and another one who's completely naked with [[AssShove a carrot shoved up his... yeah]]. But OTOH, this God still accepts perverts, even if he may act jerky towards them.
60	* MayDecemberRomance: Gender-flipped and taken to a more extreme extreme than ''Film/HaroldAndMaude'' by the Little Asshole who, despite being underage even for German standards, tries to get it on with the geezer Inge Koschmidder.
61	* MindScrew: His AuthorAvatar in the Zamonia novels is a satire of the modern literature scene and uses [[AuthorTract Author Tracts]] as actual Author Tracts by Moers that criticise among other things... Author Tracts.
62	* MomentKiller: The mother of a male teenager in one story. "Are you screwing already?"
63	* OldFriendNewGender: "Hermine" is in fact Hermann Göring for whom the CIA had paid a gender change. Now he can finally have sex with Hitler (while both sing the "Ride of the Valkyries").
64	* PottyFailure: A boy and a girl play "pee-pee". Another boy comes, wants to play along with them, tries to pee, but he tries so hard that he craps his pants instead and suggests to play "poo-poo" instead.
65	* RRatedOpening: On the cover of ''Aha!'', there is a little girl who holds up her skirt with her panties down to show a boy her private parts. The book title is the boy's reaction.
66	* ShoutOut
67	** After his alien encounter, Adolf grows to enormous size and [[Franchise/{{Godzilla}} accidentally destroys Toyko]].
68	* SinkTheLifeBoats: In one story about an opium-addicted captain who has made a plan to escape with the female passengers to an uncharted island.
69	* {{Smurfing}}: In a loose sense. Imagine a closed time loop that repeats and repeats and repeats and [[OverlyLongGag repeats and]]...OK, and that's why the respective comic calls it a "Time Smurf" by analogy.
70	* SuperZeroes: Once made a lot of one-panel-gags involving those. Giving the world "heroes" (and villains) like Heart Attack Man (since we see him in a hospital bed, he doesn't give them), Dyslexic Man, Captain Insensitive who keeps his hat on in the cinema, the very popular Round-for-the-House-Man, tiny Captain UsefulNotes/{{Liechtenstein}} and others.
71	* SurpriseParty: One short story starts with a German "white trash" guy watching TV. Then, someone rings his door, and when he opens, a hoard of penguins enters, starts a party. When he demands to know what this is all about, they show him that today's "international penguin's day". He's happy with that and joins the party.
72	* ThoseWackyNazis: ''Adolf, die Nazi-Sau''.
73	** UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler + somewhat buggy time machine = HilarityEnsues. Did you know the bastard is responsible not only for [=WW2=] and genocide, but also [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the deaths of Princess Diana and Kurt Cobain?]] (OK, it was a tragic accident.)
74	* ThreateningShark: One story about a guy with a phobia for sharks. It starts with the fact that he'd never enter water deeper than a foot... not even a puddle... or a bathtub... and then gets really weird, when he claims there are miniature sharks causing diseases and (shark-themed) madness... and then, the shark police takes him away (did they?)
75	* VomitDiscretionShot: According to ''Adolf, die Nazi-Sau'', Music/{{Prince}} (who goes by his symbol rather than by the name Prince) apparently keeps visiting Walter Moers, drinking too much Chantré, complaining about music and then hurling into Moers' loo every now and then. All we see of the latter is a speech bubble.
76	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: "Deadman, the dead comic hero". Once already listed at Amazon to be in the works. The exact reasons it wasn't made are unknown...
77	* YouNeedToGetLaid: When asked by his psychiatrist, Adolf cannot remember the last time when he had sex. Therefore, his psychiatrist gives him a prescription for a fuck. Cue OldFriendNewGender.

Context Creator / WalterMoers