Swiss Pictures in Comic Form

“I asked myself: What is there in Switzerland? Milk chocolate, the Alps, folk dances and lakes. These elements are all typical for Switzerland; I stuffed my film full with them. The lakes have to be there so that people can drown, and the Alps so that people can plummet into gorges.”
Alfred Hitchcock talking with François Truffaut about his movie “The Secret Agent” (1936)

“The map of Switzerland has always reminded me of a liver, a goose liver of course, Europe’s goose liver. Just as if capitalism and all it’s tangled definitions were nothing more than an extraordinary source of income for this country, an exquisite fattening of it’s bank safes.”
Fritz Zorn, “Mars” (1976)

“Ils sont fous, les Helvètes!” (They’re crazy, the Swiss!)
Obélix, Astérix chez les Helvètes (1970)

What Alfred Hitchcock managed to formulate out of Swiss cliché pictures for filming purposes has also been achieved by countless comic-artists: Switzerland can be depicted very simply by using just a few clichés (not forgetting the so-called Swiss cuckoo clock, which is in actual fact German), which can be transformed into a game of pictures. In international comic terms, Switzerland is always at hand for all sorts of contortion and simplification: for lovingly humorous homage as well as being a showplace for (not only agents-) action, but also for entertainment and tension, portraying a typical, sometimes meticulous and realistic country that can also take criticism when required.

Between cliché, myth and reality

The portrait of Switzerland as displayed in comics today varies between cliché, myth and reality. Postcard landscapes that are shown of Switzerland are often completely accepted as being real: A comic-artist who requires a particular landscape, city or tourist attraction for their story just simply draws/ copies the suitable picture from either a postcard or travel brochure. There are of course other artists who go to the trouble of investigating the actual location, taking photos and making sketches for further usage of Swiss material.

The popularity table of Swiss motives speaks for itself: alp horns and yodelling, cheese and fondue, chocolate and watches, cosy chalets and secluded lakes, imposing waterfalls and huge mountains (Matterhorn, Jungfrau, Eigernordwand), St. Bernhard dogs, army knives, cities (Geneva, Zurich, Lausanne, Lucerne, Berne, Basel), anonymous bank accounts (no names).

Famous “Swiss” Travellers

Whether it’s being used yet again for some sort of parodistic cliché scene or for a picturesque Swiss comic location, Switzerland remains loved throughout the comic-world. Numerous comic- identities have travelled in Switzerland including: Donald Duck, Tim and Struppi, Mickey Mouse, Batman, Superman, Asterix and Obelix, Fix and Foxi plus many others. Whether they were in town on business or holiday remains to be seen.
That’s at least how the Old Italian Master Hugo Pratt saw things, (who lived in Grandvaux above the lake of Geneva since 1983), in his “Les Helvètes” album from 1990, a magic adventure with his Corto Maltese hero. Corto finds himself searching for the Parzival- figure Klingsor and the Holy Grail and as a result ends up visiting Hermann Hesse in the Ticino. Before the fantastic comic trip to Switzerland even begins, Hugo Pratt goes into detail and explains the country’s historical and political configuration in a 20 page-opening segment of pictures and text.

Beloved Wilhelm Tell

And not forgetting Wilhelm Tell of course, the peace warrior with the crossbow who was made world famous by the German author Friedrich Schiller and his acting in 1804. The variations in which the man from canton “Uri” with his apple-shooting scene has been cheerfully quoted and taken off seem countless.
Switzerland is both paradise and hell in the world of comics. On one hand a neutral place of perfect silence, peace, safe banks and breath-taking landscapes, on the other hand dangerous as a refuge for anonymously operating wrongdoers, intimidating and frightening with it’s steep mountains and gorges plus all those atrocious national customs: The constant drown of yodelling or exhausting Fondue-frenzies.

However one looks at it, Switzerland is topical in the wide, wide world of international comics.

Text by Urs Hangartner (2005)