The honorary epithet of Großvater der Comics ("Grandfather of Comics") will be posthumously bestowed in Germany on Wilhelm Busch.

After initially studying mechanical engineering and then art in Düsseldorf, Antwerp, and Munich,Busch  had turned to drawing caricatures.

An early pioneer next to Rodolphe Töpffer in the art of combining words and pictures to tell often humorous stories in sequential panels, one of his first picture stories, Max and Moritz (published in 1865), is an immediate success and will achieve the status of a popular classic and perennial bestseller.

Max and Moritz, as well as many of his other picture stories, are regarded as one of the main precursors of the modern comic strip.

Max and Moritz, for instance, will inspire Rudolph Dirks to create the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897.