2024-08-27 05:06:14
After 15 years, the author of the Zelený Raoul comic is exhibiting in his native Vysočina. An exhibition of the works of the artist Štěpán Mareš is taking place in Brtnica in the Jihlav region. It will last until November 10, it’s called Return of the Alien. Curator Luboš Denner selected from the author’s work with the aim of presenting him not only as a draftsman and caricaturist, but also as a painter.
“People associate Štěpán Mareš with political satire, and we find it a shame, so we exhibit more colorful things,” says Denner. “It is not known that Štěpán painted a lot of paintings in the 1990s, oils and acrylics, so we took a few pieces from that period, which we are supplementing with new paintings,” he adds.
One hall in the Valdštejnské dům in Brtnice, where the exhibition takes place, is dedicated to Mareš’s painting.
In the next, there is partly the Green Raoul comic, partly drawings from free work or illustrations, with which the author accompanied the publication Kafka’s Alphabet published this year. Everything is complemented by posters and graphic sheets.
“The motifs that people know are already colored on them. But in the original, Štěpán usually creates in black and white – ink, pencil – and then it is colored digitally on the computer,” clarifies Denner.
The famous comic book Zelený Raoul, with the full name Zelený Raoul or The Neverending Story of the Czech Republic Through the Eyes of UFO, was published in the weekly magazine Reflex from January 1995. The topic was mainly the actions and behavior of Czech politicians, which he often glossed over with indiscriminate humor.
Štěpán Mareš is exhibiting in his native Vysočina after 15 years. | Photo: CTK
Events in the Czech Republic were observed and commented on by a fictional character of a green alien. The comic was drawn by Mareš, and the scenarios were written by three editors of the magazine, Dan Hrubý, Milan Tesař and Tomáš Baldýnský, under the common pseudonym Hruteb.
The often brutally provocative shots at politicians have also become the subject of lawsuits. The last volume of the comic appeared on September 29, 2022, Reflex magazine justified its termination at that time by the results of a survey that spoke of declining readership.
“I have turned away from print media lately. And maybe they have also moved away from me. Now the time has come that I draw for the news website Praha In. Twice a week I draw political satire there, but not only that, I try to somehow reflect on the events of the last few days there, ” Mareš notes.
In the future, he will work on illustrations for other books from the planned edition, which was opened by Kafka’s alphabet, published this year. According to Mareš, he will devote himself, among other things, to the work of Jaroslav Hašek or Václav Havel. “And now I’m working for the Ministry of Defense, which is a challenge I wouldn’t have thought of a year ago. They’re recruitment comics,” adds the artist.
Štěpán Mareš was born in June 1972 in Okříšky in the Třebíč region. He is said to have inherited his artistic talent from his parents.
In the beginning, he illustrated the magazine Zvonek Gymnázia Třebíč. Between 1990 and 1992 he drew comics for the magazines Kometa, Stadión and Pivní kúrýr, for the next few years he created for Nedělní Blesk and the daily Práce, and from 1995 he collaborated with Reflex. He also created the series Dlouhý nos in Lidové noviny and took part in the entertaining program on TV Prima called Dementi. He also illustrated many books and CD covers, for example the album Průša se vráci by the band Tři sestry.
Video: Kája Saudek fascinated me, it was a bolt from the blue, says Mareš (June 30, 2015)
Seeing the world through the eyes of Kája Saudek was something absolutely unprecedented, it enchanted me, cartoonist Štěpán Mareš told DVTV in 2015. | Video: Martin Veselovsky