Miki Muster
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Nikolaj Muster (22 November 1925 – 7 May 2018), known as Miki Muster, was a Slovenian academic sculptor, illustrator,
cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...
, and animator. He is viewed as a pioneer in the field of comics and animation in Slovenia, known for the series of comics featuring the characters Zvitorepec, Trdonja, and Lakotnik, and animated TV commercials.


Biography

Muster first got interested in animation when he saw
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's ''
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''. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts,
University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and re ...
, with a degree in sculpture. Even during the studies, he wished to join the Disney studios in the US, which was impossible given the post-war political situation. After completing only a couple of statues, he focused on drawing. In 1952, Muster started drawing his comic strip ''Zvitorepec'', which was running in magazines ''Poletove podobe in povesti'' (PPP) and ''Tedenska tribuna''. PPP was supposed to publish Disney's comics but as they did not arrive in time, Muster filled in with his own one. From 1955 to 1973, he was drawing for ''Slovenski poročevalec'', later renamed ''
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''; after that he worked as a freelancer. His work in comics was frowned upon by the Communist Yugoslav government, with socialist realism being the preferred art style and anything too Western undesirable. This attitude continued to some degree even after the
Tito–Stalin Split The Tito–Stalin split or the Soviet–Yugoslav split was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, respectively, in the years following World W ...
. In 1973, Muster moved to
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
to pursue a career in animation at
Bavaria Film Bavaria Film GmbH is a German film production and distribution company located in Grünwald, Bavaria at the district of Munich. It is one of Europe's largest film production companies and one of the leading production and distribution companies ...
. After Slovenia declared independence, Muster returned home and was for some time drawing caricatures for political magazines ''Mag'' and ''Reporter''. For his work, Muster received a series of awards. In 2014, the Journalist's Association of Slovenia awarded him the Borut Meško Award for his achievements in illustration and caricature. Also in 2014, he was awarded the silver order of merit for his pioneering work in the field of comics and animation by the
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Borut Pahor Borut Pahor (; born 2 November 1963) is a Slovenian politician who served as President of Slovenia from 2012 to 2022. He previously served as Prime Minister of Slovenia from 2008 to 2012. A longtime member and former president of the Social D ...
. In 2015 he received the
Prešeren Award The Prešeren Award (), also called the Grand Prešeren Award (), is the highest decoration in the field of artistic and in the past also scientific creation in Slovenia. It is awarded each year by the Prešeren Fund () to two eminent Slovene art ...
for lifetime achievements, the highest Slovenian award for arts. In 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Nova Gorica. Muster died on 7 May 2018 in a nursing home in Notranje Gorice, aged 92.


Work

Muster was best known for ''Zvitorepec,'' a long-running series of comic books featuring the anthropomorphic-animal trio of Zvitorepec, Trdonja, and Lakotnik ("Twist-tail, Hardy, and Hungerton"): a plucky fox, cautious turtle, and simple-minded wolf. The stories combined an American funny-animal art style with the dramatic conventions of Franco-Belgian ''bandes dessinées,'' including lengthy album-length narratives. The series ran for thirty-nine albums between 1952 and 1973, and sent its three heroes on adventures around the world in through different historic periods (as they had access to a time machine.) A space-travel episode from 1959 caused a minor political incident when the Russian cosmonauts that the trio meets on the trip to the Moon were depicted as bears, causing the Soviet embassy in
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issued an official protest. In order to resolve the problem, the next volume depicted American astronauts as monkeys, which pleased the Russians (while not bothering the US, where the comics were not published anyway). Some stories outlined real-world problems such as increasing pollution and aggressive driving, while a story about Lakotnik building his own house made fun of the construction process in Yugoslavia in the 1960s. Although some contemporaries criticized Muster's style as "too American" and "too Disneyesque", he was nevertheless recognized for his artistic talent. The comics were immensely popular with children and teenagers and remained a mainstay of newspapers and book collections for decades. Muster's other illustrations and comics include stories about Neewa the Bear, Lupinica, Snežko, The Last of the Mohicans, Ostrostrelec, Stezosledec, and others. He was also well-known for his work in animation, especially for TV commercials. Among his best-known works were the Cikcak bunnies and commercials for Mercator, Čunga Lunga chewing gum, and Viki krema. While in Munich, Muster collaborated with the Argentinian cartoonist Guillermo Mordillo, creating about 400 of shorts based on his characters. He also worked on the animated adventures of German private detective Nick Knatterton.


References


External links

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Kar sem si želel kot mulc, sem uresničil (interview)
("I Made My Boyhood Ambition Come True"; Dnevnik, 9 June 2007)
Miki Muster: Packanje z barvami mi ni všeč (interview)
("I Don't Like Mucking About With Colours"; Dnevnik, 7 February 2015) {{DEFAULTSORT:Muster, Miki 1925 births 2018 deaths 20th-century Slovenian sculptors 20th-century Slovenian male artists 20th-century Slovenian illustrators 21st-century Slovenian illustrators Slovenian cartoonists Slovenian animators Slovenian comics artists People from Murska Sobota University of Ljubljana alumni Prešeren Award laureates