Kája Saudek
| Kája Saudek | |
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Kája Saudek in 2006
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| Born | Karel Saudek 13 May 1935 Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| Died | 26 June 2015 (aged 80) Prague, Czech Republic |
| Nationality | Czech |
| Area(s) | Writer, penciller, inker |
Kája Saudek (born Karel Saudek, 13 May 1935 – 26 June 2015) was a Czech comics illustrator. He was one of the most important exponents of the Czech comics since the late 1960s. He was the twin brother of the photographer and painter Jan Saudek.
His father Gustav Saudek was a Jew, and the family was persecuted by Germans during World War II. Kája and his brother Jan were imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp Luža in Poland. Many of his family members died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, but both brothers and their father survived the imprisonment and came back to Prague.
Saudek became familiar with the American comics in his early years. He was inspired mainly by the works of Walt Disney and later he was influenced also by Robert Crumb and Richard Corben. He became a technical writer and in 1950s worked as a scene-shifter at the Barrandov Film Studios. In 1966, the film director Miloš Macourek used some of his drawings in the film Kdo chce zabít Jessii? (Who Wants to Kill Jessie?) and Saudek's works gradually became more popular in the Czechoslovakia. In the 1960s he created comics drawings for the magazine Popmusic Express (Underground Com-comix), as well as illustrations to the scripts by Jaroslav Foglar, Ondřej Neff and others. In 1969 he published a part of the comic series Muriel a andělé (Muriel and Angels). The album depicts the story of a young physician Muriel, who meets an angel Ro, coming from a distant future. Ro attempts to introduce her to a world without hate, evil people and death. The communist censorship considered the story potentially dangerous and banned its publishing. Saudek's style was considered as too "American", some of his critics labelled his work as an example of bourgeois kitsch. The complete cycle was published later, in 1991. The actress Olga Schoberová served as a model for Muriel and Saudek's brother Jan was depicted as the main negative character, general Xeron. In 1971 he contributed to the film Čtyři vraždy stačí, drahoušku (Four Murders is enough, Honey) with his drawings.
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