Thomas Ott (born 10 June 1966) is a Swiss comic artist. His comics have been published in German-speaking countries, France, the United States, Spain, Denmark, Italy and other places.
36-751: Ott's often wordless comics feature a dark, grim atmosphere; he works mainly with cutters and scratchboard . After graduating from the School of Design in Zurich in 1987, Ott worked as a comic artist in Zurich and Paris. His first book, Tales of Error , was published by Edition Moderne in 1989. Other books followed with the same publisher as well as the French publisher L'Association . He has worked for Strapazin , Lapin , L'Écho des Savanes and various newspapers, among other publications. From 1998 to June 2001, Ott studied film at
72-565: A deaf and mute puppeteer, and his speaking talent, as a mad scientist; and a cameo as himself in Mel Brooks ' Silent Movie (1976), in which, with intentional irony, his character has the only audible speaking part, uttering the single word "Non!" when Brooks asks him (via intertitle ) if he would participate in the film. His last film appearances included small roles in Klaus Kinski 's Paganini (1989) and Joseph's Gift (1998). He also had
108-435: A liaison officer with General George Patton 's Third Army . According to Marceau, when he was five years of age, his mother took him to see a Charlie Chaplin film, which entranced him and led him to want to become a mime artist. The first time he used mime was after France was invaded, in order to keep Jewish children quiet while he helped them escape to neutral Switzerland . After the war ended in 1945, he enrolled as
144-469: A more visual experience, where the actual meaning of the events is left to the readers' own interpretation. Some famous silent-comics artists are Sergio Aragonés , Guy Bara , Chaval , Henning Dahl Mikkelsen , Adolf Oberländer , Wil Raymakers , Otto Soglow , Gluyas Williams and Jim Woodring . Marcel Marceau Marcel Marceau ( French pronunciation: [maʁsɛl maʁso] ; born Marcel Mangel ; 22 March 1923 – 22 September 2007)
180-653: A new photo book for children titled Bip in a Book , published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, appeared in bookstores in the U.S., France, and Australia. In 1969, Marcel Marceau opened his first school, École Internationale de Mime, in the Théàtre de la Musique in Paris. The school was open for two years with fencing, acrobatics, ballet, and five teachers of mime. In 1978, Marceau established his school, École Internationale de Mimodrame de Paris, Marcel Marceau (International School of Mimodrame of Paris, Marcel Marceau). In 1996, he established
216-802: A remarkable renaissance with strong appeal to a third generation. He later appeared to overwhelming acclaim for extended engagements at such legendary American theaters as The Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge , Massachusetts, and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles demonstrating the timeless appeal of the work and the mastery of this unique artist. Marceau's new total company production Les Contes Fantastiques ( Fantasy Tales ) opened to great acclaim at
252-605: A retirement home in Cahors , France, on 22 September 2007 at the age of 84. At his burial ceremony, the second movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 (which Marceau long used as an accompaniment for an elegant mime routine) was played, as was the sarabande of Bach's Cello Suite No. 5 . Marceau was interred at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Marceau was made a commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres , an Officer of
288-605: A role in a low-budget film roughly based on his life story called Paint It White . The film was never completed because another actor in the movie, a lifelong friend with whom he had attended school, died halfway through filming. As an author, Marceau published two books for children, the Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book and the Marcel Marceau Counting Book , and poetry and illustrations, including La ballade de Paris et du Monde ( The Ballad of Paris and
324-566: A student in Charles Dullin 's School of Dramatic Art in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris, where he studied with teachers such as Joshua Smith and Étienne Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault . Marceau joined Jean-Louis Barrault 's company and was soon cast in the role of Arlequin in a pantomime, Baptiste (which Barrault had interpreted in the film Les Enfants du Paradis ). Marceau's performance won him such acclaim that he
360-542: A universal basis in which everyone can recognize themselves”. Some add that “despite his lines steeped in black humour, one would do him wrong to see them merely as a parody of the horror genre [...] Ott empathises with the underdogs and has a certain sensitivity to truly tragic stories.” And again: “For years, the Swiss comic artist has been delivering the darkest visions of the absurd side of modern civilisation.” In 2013, Ott released another new work after three years: Dark Country
396-601: A worker at the school she directed; Hagnauer would later receive the honor of Righteous Among the Nations from Yad Vashem . In 1944 Marcel's father was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp , where he was killed. Marcel's mother survived. Marcel and his older brother, Alain, adopted the last name "Marceau" during the German occupation of France ; the name
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#1732890551681432-437: Is a “magnificent illustrated tale” in which Ott “manages to recount in his signature style, with extraordinary delicacy but without compromising on terror, the journey of a child facing and accepting the loss of a beloved person.” Pantomime comics Silent comics (or pantomime comics ) are comics which are delivered in mime . They make use of little or no dialogue , speech balloons or captions written underneath
468-443: Is different. It's like in the theater. You have regular theater, and you have pantomime, like Marcel Marceau or Alejandro Jodorowsky . And I apply that to cartooning and it works." Silent comics tend to be popular in the gag-a-day comics genre, where they typically consist of just three or four images per episode. But some graphic novels with longer narratives also make use of pantomime (see Wordless novels ). This allows for
504-426: Is like a supersimplification. Something you can say with words, you have to eliminate all the words until it can be told in a little story without words. You just think a little longer. But it becomes rewarding in the end because everybody can understand your cartoons no matter what your nationality. And that, to me, has been always a big thing—to do cartoons that everybody can understand, every age, every nationality. It
540-586: Is the story of a nightmarish honeymoon and is a standalone adaptation of the 2008 film of the same name by screenwriter Tab Murphy and director and Hollywood actor Thomas Jane ( The Punisher ). Jane himself invited Ott to tell his film as a comic. In 2015, Ott co-founded the Swiss doom metal band Tar Pond. The other two founding members were former Celtic Frost bassist Martin Eric Ain (replaced by Monika Schori after his death in 2017) and former Coroner drummer Markus "Marky" Edelmann. Ott has performed vocals for
576-841: The Academy of Fine Arts Munich , the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France . Marceau held honorary doctorates from Ohio State University , Linfield College , Princeton University and the University of Michigan . In April 2001, Marceau was awarded the Wallenberg Medal by the University of Michigan in recognition of his humanitarianism and acts of courage aiding Jewish people and other refugees during World War II. In 1999 New York City declared 18 March "Marcel Marceau Day". Marceau accepted
612-509: The Légion d'honneur , and in 1978 he received the Médaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris . The City of Paris awarded him a grant which enabled him to reopen his International School which offered a three-year curriculum. In November 1998, President Jacques Chirac made Marceau a grand officer of the Ordre national du Mérite . Marceau was an elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts Berlin ,
648-590: The Théâtre Antoine in Paris. Marceau was married three times: first to Huguette Mallet, with whom he had two sons, Michel and Baptiste; then, to Ella Jaroszewicz, with whom he had no children. His third wife was Anne Sicco, with whom he had two daughters, Camille and Aurélia. Artist and fellow mime Paulette Frankl released a memoir in August 2014 about her decades-long relationship with Marceau, Marcel & Me: A Memoir of Love, Lust, and Illusion. Marceau died in
684-647: The Zurich School of Art and Design . His diploma film was the 15-minute Sjeki vatcsh! . The artist's favourite technique is scratchboarding : “it makes images emerge from multiple layers of black ink by literally ‘scratching’ them with a nib, specifically a Japanese cutter. A painstakingly delicate work that leaves no room for error, in which Ott is now a master”. The dark, distressing and suffocating atmospheres of his stories have received critical acclaim. Ott skilfully combines “fragments of detective fiction, noir and horror. For him, popular genres, such as fairy tales, are
720-420: The " Little Tramp " had become Charlie Chaplin 's. Bip's misadventures with everything from butterflies to lions, from ships and trains to dancehalls and restaurants, were limitless. As a stylist of pantomime, Marceau was acknowledged without peer. Marceau, during a televised talk with Todd Farley, expresses his respect for the mime techniques that Charlie Chaplin used in his films, noting that Chaplin seemed to be
756-552: The "art of silence:" The art of silence speaks to the soul, like music, making comedy, tragedy, and romance, involving you and your life. . . . creating character and space, by making a whole show on stage – showing our lives, our dreams, our expectations. In 1949, following his receipt of the Deburau Prize (established as a memorial to the 19th-century mime master Jean-Gaspard Deburau ) for his second mimodrama, Death before Dawn , Marceau founded Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau,
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#1732890551681792-524: The Marceau Foundation to promote mime in the United States. In 1995, pop megastar Michael Jackson , who had been friends with Marceau for nearly 20 years, planned a concert together with him for HBO , but the concert was canceled after Jackson was hospitalized for exhaustion during rehearsals. Jackson, during an interview, said that he had always been "in awe" at Marceau's skill as a performer: He
828-650: The Spanish writer Tirso de Molina ). Marceau performed all over the world to spread the "art of silence" ( L'art du silence ). It was the intellectual minority who knew of him until he first toured the United States in 1955 and 1956, close on the heels of his North American debut at the Stratford Festival of Canada . After his opening engagement at the Phoenix Theater in New York , which received rave reviews, he moved to
864-783: The United States in 2004, and he returned to Europe in 2005 and to Australia in 2006. He was one of the world's most renowned mime artists. Marceau's art became familiar to millions through his many television appearances. His first television performance as a star performer on the Max Liebman, Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore , and he also had his one-man show entitled "Meet Marcel Marceau". He teamed with Red Skelton in three concerts of pantomimes. Marceau also showed his versatility in motion pictures such as Professor Ping in Barbarella (1968); First Class (1970), in which he played 17 roles; Shanks (1974), where he combined his silent art, playing
900-542: The World ), an art book which he wrote in 1966, and The Story of Bip , written and illustrated by Marceau and published by Harper and Row. In 1974, he posed for artist Kenneth Hari and worked on paintings and drawings that resulted in a book and artwork in many museum collections. In 1982, Le Troisième Œil , ( The Third Eye ), his collection of ten original lithographs, was published in Paris with an accompanying text by Marceau. Belfond of Paris published Pimporello in 1987. In 2001,
936-615: The band since its founding, including on both of its studio albums, Protocol of Constant Sadness (2020) and Petrol (2023). He also designs the band's t-shirts. Ott taught for a decade at the Zurich University of the Arts , deciding “just before the first wave of the pandemic” to resign in order to work as an author and illustrator. In 2020 he was awarded a scholarship from the Pro Helvetia foundation. His latest work, The Forest (2022),
972-422: The images. Instead, the stories or gags are told entirely through pictures. Silent comics have the advantage of being easily understandable to people - like children - who are slow readers. The genre is also universally popular since translation is not required, lacking the usual language barriers . Sergio Aragonés , a famous artist in the field, once said in a 1991 interview with Comics Journal : "What happens
1008-471: The larger Barrymore Theater to accommodate the public demand. This first U.S. tour ended with a record-breaking return to standing-room-only crowds in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and other major cities. His extensive transcontinental tours included South America, Africa, Australia, China, Japan, South East Asia, Taiwan , Russia, and Europe. His last world tour covered
1044-587: The members of the French Jewish Resistance in France ( Organisation Juive de Combat-OJC , aka Armée Juive ), urged him to join in order to help rescue Jews during the Holocaust . The OJC, which was composed of nine clandestine Jewish networks, rescued thousands of Jewish children and adults during the war in France. He was schooled in the Paris suburbs at the home of Yvonne Hagnauer , while pretending to be
1080-714: The only company of pantomime in the world at the time. The ensemble played the leading Paris theatres, such as Le Théâtre des Champs-Élysées , Le Théâtre de la Renaissance, and the Bernhardt Theatre, as well as other playhouses throughout the world. From 1959 to 1960, a retrospective of his mimodramas, including The Overcoat by Gogol , ran for a full year at the Amibigu Théâtre in Paris. He produced 15 other mimodramas, including Pierrot de Montmartre , The Three Wigs , The Pawn Shop , 14 July , The Wolf of Tsu Ku Mi , Paris Cries — Paris Laughs and Don Juan (adapted from
1116-638: The only silent film actor who used mime. His silent mimed exercises, which included The Cage , Walking Against the Wind , The Mask Maker , and In The Park , all became classic displays. Satires on everything from sculptors to matadors were described as works of genius. Of his summation of the ages of man in the famous Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death , one critic said: "He accomplishes in less than two minutes what most novelists cannot do in volumes." During an interview with CBS in 1987, Marceau tried to explain some of his inner feelings while creating mime, calling it
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1152-706: The war, he studied dramatic art and mime in Paris. Marcel Marceau was born in Strasbourg , France, to a Jewish family. His father, Charles Mangel, was a kosher butcher originally from Będzin , Poland. His mother, Anne Werzberg, came from Yabluniv , present-day Ukraine . Through his mother's family, he was a cousin of Israeli singer Yardena Arazi . When Marcel was four years old, the family moved to Lille , but they later returned to Strasbourg. After France's invasion by Nazi Germany , Marcel, then 17, fled with his family to Limoges . His cousin Georges Loinger , one of
1188-525: Was a French mime artist and actor most famous for his stage persona, " Bip the Clown ". He referred to mime as the "art of silence", performing professionally worldwide for more than 60 years. As a Jewish youth, he lived in hiding and worked with the French Resistance during most of World War II , giving his first major performance to 3,000 troops after the liberation of Paris in August 1944 . Following
1224-797: Was a great guy. I used to go see Marcel Marceau all of the time, before Off the Wall . I used to sneak in and sit in the audience and watch how he would defy the laws of gravity like he was stepping on air. I would take some of those things and include it into rhythm and dance when I move. In 2000, Marceau brought his full mime company to New York City to present his new melodrama, The Bowler Hat , previously seen in Paris, London, Tokyo, Taipei, Caracas, Santo Domingo, Valencia (Venezuela), and Munich. From 1999, when Marceau returned with his classic solo show to New York and San Francisco after 15-year absences for critically acclaimed sold-out runs, his career in America enjoyed
1260-776: Was chosen as a reference to François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers , a general of the French Revolution . The two brothers joined the French Resistance in Limoges . They rescued numerous children from the race laws and concentration camps in the framework of the Jewish Resistance in France, and, after the liberation of Paris , joined the French army. Owing to Marceau's fluency in English, French, and German, he worked as
1296-595: Was encouraged to present his first "mimodrama", Praxitele and the Golden Fish , at the Bernhardt Theatre that same year. The acclaim was unanimous, and Marceau's career as a mime artist was firmly established. In 1947 Marceau created Bip the Clown, whom he first played at the Théâtre de Poche (Pocket Theatre) in Paris. In his appearance, he wore a striped pullover and a battered, be-flowered silk opera hat. The outfit signified life's fragility, and Bip became his alter ego, just as
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