21. December 2021 press release

At the end of 2021/beginning of 2022, the German Museum of Books and Writing (DBSM) at the German National Library managed to acquire an extensive collection of American underground and independent comics. This collection closes a gap in the museum's holdings that has been known for many years as a desideratum. Since it is quite rare for larger bundles of early artists’ comics to come onto the market, it can be considered a stroke of luck – due not least to the owner’s generous gesture of goodwill – that the DBSM was able to acquire this unique collection.
The collection, which was assembled over several decades by “man of conviction” (Andreas Platthaus) and “bibliophile” (Michael Krüger) Armin Abmeier (1940-2012), includes not only underground and independent comics but also graphzines, artists’ publications, illustrated books, journals, secondary literature and various other items such as postcards, records, CDs and videos issued between the early 1960s and 2012. Armin Abmeier’s collecting activities mainly focused on individual artists who are now seen as leading figures in their field – among them Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman and Mark Beyer. Since the collector always sought personal contact with the artists, the collection includes a large proportion of books, albums and special editions that have been signed or contain signed dedications. It is these personalised, one-of-a-kind items that give the collection its remarkable character.
The collection provides a comprehensive overview of the creative work of the international cartoonists’ and illustrators’ scene, which was positioned in the grey area between high and popular culture and often deliberately moved away from the cultural mainstream. The American underground and independent comics are the centrepieces of the Abmeier collection. As early as the late 1960s, he acquired early comic publications published in very small editions in San Francisco, the hub of the emerging underground scene; nowadays, these are only very rarely offered by antiquarian booksellers. Moreover, hardly any of these titles are held by European libraries.

The works of Robert Crumb, whose publications Abmeier collected almost in their entirety, are of particular importance – after all, Crumb was one of the most influential and controversial figures in this area. The oeuvre of Art Spiegelman marked the transition from underground comics to independent scene. The collection also contains almost all of Spiegelman’s works – from early underground magazines such as “Arcade” and “Raw” to his published books “Maus” [Mouse] and “Breakdowns”. Other featured illustrators include Chris Ware, Mark Beyer, Charles Burns, David Sandlin and George Herriman.
“For the German Museum of Books and Writing in Leipzig, both the diversity of the underground and independent comics represented in the Abmeier Collection and the large proportion of very small editions, unique works, and ephemera are a practically inexhaustible reservoir for collaborations in the fields of literature, book and visual studies, and the digital humanities. Furthermore, their strong visual element naturally makes them a great asset for exhibitions and digital presentations,” says Stephanie Jacobs, Head of the DBSM, which has made a name for itself as an international centre documenting the culture of books and writing.
For children’s book author and illustrator Rotraut Susanne Berner, who looked after and catalogued her husband Armin Abmeier’s collection after his death, the DBSM and the book city of Leipzig are the ideal repository, not only because of their importance in the field of art and illustration, but also because of the many artists who live or were trained in Leipzig and with whom Armin Abmeier had many connections. “I had the opportunity to visit the Museum and to take a look behind the scenes, and am very happy to think that my husband’s collection will be housed here,” says Rotraut Susanne Berner.
The acquisition was arranged by Prof. Dr. Christine Haug from the Centre for Book Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

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Background

The collector

Armin Abmeier (1940-2012) initially worked as a bookseller and in the publicity departments of publishing companies such as Melzer and Suhrkamp before becoming an agent for Fischer, Greno, Hanser, Schirmer/Mosel and Wagenbach in the 1980s. During the 1990s, he also worked as a publisher, starting out with the series “Die Tollen Bücher” [The Great Books] and “Die Tollen Hefte” [The Great Magazines], which he published in cooperation with the company Maro Verlag. In 2001, “Die Tollen Hefte” were added to the programme of Büchergilde Gutenberg (the Gutenberg Book Guild), which published them – edited after Abmeier’s death by Rotraut Susanne Berner – until they were discontinued in 2019.

German Museum of Books and Writing

The book has shaped our culture and civilisation like no other medium. For centuries our knowledge about the world and its peoples has been stored in books. The task of the German National Library’s German Museum of Books and Writing is to collect, exhibit and process evidence of book and media history. Founded in 1884 in Leipzig as the Deutsches Buchgewerbemuseum (German Book Trade Museum), it is the oldest museum in the world in the field of book culture, and also one of the most important with regard to the scope and quality of its holdings.
Alongside manuscripts, historical prints, coloured papers and modern book art, its collections contain archive materials and estates on the history of writing and typography. Together with the world’s largest watermark collection and a host of writing implements and machines for producing books and paper, the museum’s collections facilitate an interdisciplinary approach to issues in cultural and media studies .

Images for editorial use

Press image material is only available in German.
Copyright for all images: @Rotraut Susanne Berner