Carsten Laqua                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               June 12, 2026

Hildegardstr. 19 A

DE - 10715 Berlin

Tel.: +49-30-76 70 30 66

Email: galerielaqua@aol.com

About me

I have been working professionally with comics and animation for over 40 years. During this time I wrote articles on comics and animation for the following newspapers, magazines

and journals: "Zitty" (city magazine in Berlin), "Die Sprechblase" (comic magazine, Schönau), "stern," "Ems Blick," "U-Comix" (comic magazine from Nuremberg), "i-Punkt," "Sender

Freies Berlin" (radio), "Comic Forum" (comic magazine from Austria), "Der Spiegel," "The Comics Journal" (magazine in the USA), "Penthouse" (German edition), "Die Weltwoche"

(Zurich), "Tagesspiegel" (Berlin), "Sammler Journal," "Szene Watcher" (fanzine from Berlin), "Comics Info" (Hildesheim), "9e Art" (France), and "0172" (Mannesmann mobile phone

magazine).

I am the sole author of the book "How Mickey Fell Under the Nazis - Walt Disney and Germany" (“Wie Micky unter die Nazis fiel”, rororo non-fiction book no. 9104 from 1992), the

exhibition-accompanying brochure "From Simplicissimus to Superman - Comic Posters from 1.05 Centuries" (April 2000), and the annotated reprint volume "Lurchi's Adventures

1937-1939" (INCOS, Berlin 2010).

I co-authored the following books: "With Tarzan and Snoopy into the Weekend" (“Mit Tarzan und Snoopy ins Wochenend”, exhibition catalog, Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und

Gewerbe, 1992, (with Karlheinz Borchert), "Donald – The Duck Has Become Human" (“Donald – Die Entw ist Mensch geworden”, exhibition catalog of the Caricature Museum Krems

near Vienna, 2007, with Gottfried Helnwein) and "Walt Kelly - The Life and Art of the Creator of Pogo" (Hermes Press, 2012, with Thomas Andrae).

I contributed to the following books: "Bibliography of Crime Fiction" (Ullstein, 1985), "Comics" (Beltz Verlag, 1990), "Who is Carl Barks?" (“Wer ist Carl Barks?”, Neff, 1993),

"Disneyana - Collectibles from the World of Mickey Mouse" (Battenberg, 1993), "Cinema * Movie * Cinema -100 Years of Film" (Exhibition catalog of the German Film Archive

Foundation in Berlin; Argon, 1995), "Felix the Cat" (Carlsen, 1996), "Krägermann's Comic Price Catalog" (Berlin, 1996), "10 + 5 = God - The Power of Signs" (Exhibition catalog of the

Jewish Museum in Berlin, DuMont, 2004).

I have organized and designed exhibitions for the International Comic Salon Erlangen (1990: "The EC Comics", 1992: "How Mickey Fell Under the Nazis", 2014: "Pogo - An Opossum

Makes History - Walt Kelly's Legendary Comic Strip"), the Berlin Comic Fair at the radio tower “Funkturm” (1990 and '91), the Mainz Comic Salon (1991), and the Museum of Arts and

Crafts in Hamburg (Kunst- und Gewerbemuseum, 1992, (together with K.-H. Borchert). Together with the painter Gottfried Helnwein, I designed and organized the exhibition

"The Duck Has Become Human - The Graphic Work of Carl Barks". The stops on the tour which ran from March 1994 to the end of 1997 and then again in 2007, were: the Wilhelm

Busch Museum in Hanover, the Munich City Museum, Oberhausen Castle (“Schloß Oberhausen”), the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg, the State Museum in Mainz, the

Museum of Applied Arts in Cologne, the Spandau Citadel in Berlin, the Galerie am Fischmarkt in Erfurt, the Swiss Federal Gymnastics Festival in Bern (Switzerland), the Kunsthalle

Schwaben in Weitnau-Hofen, Ravensberger Park in Bielefeld, and finally the Caricature Museum in Krems (Austria). In Krems alone, this slightly modified version attracted 95,000

visitors between March and November 2007. In total, almost 500,000 visitors saw "the human duck."

Other solo exhibitions included: 1.) "When Mickey Mouse Came to Germany." The tour began on December 5, 1996, at the "House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany"

in Bonn. This was followed by: the Munich City Museum, the Frankfurter Hof in Mainz, the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover, in 1998 the Ludwig Museums in Oberhausen and

Saarlouis, the Kornwestheim City Gallery, the Frankfurt Film Museum, and in 1999 the Körnerpark Gallery in Berlin. This exhibition attracted over 120,000 visitors in total. 2.) "From

Simplicissimus to Superman" showcased 200 comic posters spanning over 100 years and ran until July 2000 at the Spandau Citadel in Berlin.

On a freelance basis, I compiled and designed "From the Yellow Kid to Superman" for the Ludwig Institute at Oberhausen Castle. This exhibition featured exhibits from all over the

world. They demonstrated the wide variety of "heroes" that the comic medium has produced. This exhibition was shown at Oberhausen Castle from the beginning of May 1998

and at the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover from December 1998.

I also worked on a freelance basis as a consultant and lender for the Kunsthaus Kaufbeuren (Bavaria). There, from October 1999 to March 2000, the exhibition "Donald Duck & Co.

- Ducks Conquer the World" was on display. This was followed (together with Dr. Michael Scholz): "No One Too Small to Be a Fighter - On the Educational Mission of GDR Comics.

" The client and financier was the "Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship" of the German Bundestag. This highly acclaimed exhibition ran in the fall of 2000 in the

Saalbau of the Berlin-Neukölln Cultural Office. With my biography and corresponding loans, I myself am "the subject of study" in the exhibition "Comic Life," which ran from May

to the end of October 2012 at the "Museum of European Cultures" (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) in Berlin-Dahlem. Afterwards, it wasshown at the "Museum für Kunst

und Gewerbe" in Hamburg.

Since October 1997, I had a teaching assignment "in the field of comics  at the Department of Journalism at the Free University of Berlin and at the Department of Animation at

the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg in Potsdam (Brandenburg).

I have lectured on comic topics at all major German comic conventions (Erlangen, Mainz, Hamburg, Munich). Internationally, I have given presentations at the Carrara Comics

Festival in Italy ("Carrara Show," May 2015) and at the "Comics and Satire" academic conference at Uppsala University in Visby (Gotland Campus, Sweden, October 2015).

As a comics and animation expert, I have provided expert opinions for Lloyds Insurance, the television station RTL ("Ottifanten"), and the insurance assessor Dr. Rißmann in

Wiesbaden, the company Public Toons in Hamburg, the Würzburg District Court, the company My-Baby-Shop.com in Bad Homburg, the Berlin Regional Court (case number

63 S 528/08), the Mannheim Regional Court (case number 9 O 386/08), the law firm Boemert & Boemert (Berlin - Babelsberg), and the cultural center in Mainz ("KuZ," regarding

its business closure in December 2014) wrote to the following clients. These documents concerned both valuation reports and copyright opinions.

Furthermore, since the mid-1980s, I have produced up to four printed, four-color catalogs per year ("Galerie Laqua," 138 editions published to date) featuring original drawings

by comic and animation artists and related specialist literature. This catalog is considered one of the most comprehensive in the industry worldwide by any dealer (fixed-price

sales, no auctions). My clients include comic, film, and art museums in Chicago and Florida (USA), Angoulême (France), Mainz, Hanover, Cologne, Dortmund, Basel, and Lausanne

(Switzerland), Amadora (Portugal), Changchun (China) and Berlin. In addition to its catalog, Galerie Laqua has been successfully using the internet as a sales channel since January

2001 through its own websites (www.originalcomicart.com, www.galerielaqua.de, www.planches.eu, www.mangaland.com, www.originalcomicart.com,

www.antiquariat-für-zeitgeschichte.de, www.historical-leaflets.com, www.disneyana.de, among others).

Besides the comic drawings, my website offers various specialist literature on comic topics, an extensive antiquarian comic book section with over 14,000 titles

(www.vielecomics.de,  www.comicliteratur.de,  and remnants of what was once the largest selection of "Disneyana" in Germany, primarily featuring rarities from the pre-World

War II era. (www.disneyana.de, www.disney-collectibles.com)

From March 2009 to April 2019, Galerie Laqua, in collaboration with Toyboxx, organized a biannual comic convention at the Ellington Hotel (Nürnberger Str., near Kurfürstendamm)

featuring publishers, artists from Germany and abroad, and a wide range of merchandise. With over 1,200 visitors and over 130 vendor tables each year, the Berlin convention,

along with the Cologne convention, was one of the largest dedicated comic conventions in Germany.

Beyond its commercial aspect, Galerie Laqua frequently lends artwork to comic and cartoon exhibitions both in Germany and abroad and, with its extensive collection of secondary

literature, has been able to assist students throughout Germany with their master's, diploma, and doctoral theses in various disciplines related to comics.