The caricaturist Ladislaus ("Ludwig") Kmoch was a self-taught cartoonist, who began working for the press after World War I. He worked for the satirical magazines Muskete and Simplizzimus, until he joined the social democratic newspapper Das Kleine Blatt in 1929. For this paper, he created the comics character 'Tobias Seicherl' in 1930. This political daily strip, about a middle-class man and his dog Struppi, was the first comic strip of Austrian origin. It featured balloons (unusual for European comcis at the time) and was written in the Viennese dialect.
Kmoch initially gave comments on the Nazi uprise, but eventually avoided the subject by sending the character on a number of world tours. After the Austrian "Anschluss" in 1938, Kmoch did change fronts and propagated Nazi ideas (either forced on freewill), but he eventually sent his character on a new world tour in 1939. After the War, Kmoch occassionally did new strips with the character, such as a new run between 1958 and 1961.
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