Wilhelm Busch confessed later on in life, that some things in his book really did happen. His friendship with the miller’s son Erich Bachmann and their childhood antics together likely inspired the figures of Max and Moritz. A pencil portrait that Bush drew at age 14 shows Bachmann as a young man with thick, round cheeks like those of Max.
Tag: <span>Max and Moritz</span>
Regardless of how one interprets the story of Max and Moritz, the famous picture book is actually considered to be the pioneer of modern comics.
Children’s books first appeared in the later 18th century and were strongly moralizing and educational. The books were meant to teach and instruct, not to entertain, and the child figures in those books behaved like miniature adults.