Lips Tullian

In a 1973 letter to his friend Pavel Nosek, Saudek notes that the circulation of the magazine increased by 105,000 during the period of publishing of Lips Tullian.

The official cultural apparatus considered Saudek's style too "American", and some of his critics labelled his work as an example of bourgeois kitsch.

The creators and the editorial board attempted to select a non-controversial topic in order to "keep the balance between the attractiveness of the magazine and the political pressure".

[6] For that purpose, Weigel paraphrased the stories from the popular novelettes depicting the adventures of the highwayman Filip of Mengenstein, alias Lips Tullian.

According to the Czech comics expert Tomáš Prokůpek, the series achieved "phenomenal success" and a long queues of impatient readers crowded in front of newsstands each Wednesday (the day of publishing of Mladý svět).

In reaction, the editorial board of the magazine attempted to protect the series by publishing an interview with Saudek in which he resolutely repudiated any association with Western comics.

[8] Lips Tullian later appeared in other of Saudek's works, most notably in the albums Stříbrný poklad (Silver Treasure, 1982) and Konec Sahrbergovy bandy (The End of the Sahrberg Bunch, 1985).

As a defender of the poor and tormented, he doesn't hesitate to help anywhere; however, his efforts focus mainly on rescuing beautiful women from the hands of evil villains.

The plot is naïve (based on kitschy 19th-century novels) and the main theme of the series is, in Saudek's words: "revenge and love in many variations, the topic still living".