Gravel Pit Night

The great comic autobiography of the cult cartoonist (Strizz)

Summer 1948: A refugee family attempts to find its place in post-war life. The four-year-old Volker looks in astonishment at the new world, at his four siblings and their parents – who did not emerge guiltless from the war. The father offered his services as »Poet of the Führer«, the mother was a leader in the »League of German Girls«. Yet for Volker all of this is incomprehensible – it becomes a part of the great adventure of childhood, and then the great adventure that is art: 65 years later, the boy has blossomed into famous cartoonist Volker Reiche.

Volker Reiche’s Strizz, drawn for the the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from 2002 to 2010, has been the most successful German comic strip ever. Reiche won important distinctions for it, such as the Max and Moritz Prize of the city Erlangen, the Olav Gulbransson Prize and the Swift Prize for Economic Satire. He was also awarded the title of Best German Cartoonist in 2006.

In his autobiographical masterpiece Gravel Pit Night, Volker Reiche reinvents the comic medium as he records his account of how he became an artist and of his life as a child in the post-war period.