Sondermann

Sondermann is a cartoon character of the painter and cartoonist Bernd Pfarr, which appeared, until August 1994, in a column of the same name by the writer Simone Borowiak and, from 1987 to August 2004, regularly in the satirical magazine Titanic.

Sondermann is a creation of an illustrator, who, as Bernd Pfarr himself once said, wants "to drive reality out of the pictures" (German: "den Bildern die Realität austreiben").

The world of Sondermann is subject to its own, individual laws: "Negro scrubbing" (German: "Negerschrubben") is a traditional ritual at Sondermann's company, Sondermann and his boss subdue their hunger by "huddling softly together" (German: "sich weich aneinander schmiegen"), consuming a Schnitzel and taking out the trash are common yoga exercises, and Sondermann defeats God (German: "den lieben Gott") in Tennis.

According to writer Robert Gernhardt, the character very soon developed a "life of its own" (German: "Eigenleben"), for which even the editorial staff of Titanic was not prepared.

Since 2004, the name of Bernd Pfarr's character also denotes an audience prize for comics awarded by and at the Frankfurt Book Fair in collaboration with the magazine Comixene, the Frankfurter Rundschau, and Spiegel Online.