The Fairytaler...

Hans Christian Andersen lived from 1805 to 1875. His first volume of fairy tales was published in 1835, and ever since, his name has been an indelible part of Danish history. His remains were interred at Assistens Kirkegård in Copenhagen, where one can also find Søren Kierkegaard, H.C. Ørsted, Lauritz Melchior and Niels Bohr, painters Abildgaard, Eckersberg, Købke, Skovgaard and Heerup, as well as Basie-trombone player Richard Boone (from Little Rock, AR) who came to Copenhagen with jazz greats Ben Webster and Kenny Drew who also are interred here. In the summer this is also a nice park.

In the year 2005, which was the 200th anniversary of his birth, my studio A. Film produced a series of television programs called Hans Christian Andersen: The Fairy Tales. Actually, the original name of the series is "The Fairytaler," which admittedly is rather constructed. We received the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2005 for this series, for “re-interpretation of H.C. Andersen's stories for children through animation”, awarded by the H.C. Andersen Committee from Andersen's home town of Odense.

In our storage, I recently dug up a copy of above inspirational illustration which was painted by Serbian comic book author Rajko Milošević-Gera (or Guera) who is credited as storyboard artist; the series art director was Malene Laugesen with whom we have worked since the mid-80s. I like this painting, and hope you do, too...