Its footprint is considerable. The international influence of comics relies on these few smugglers. Born in Skjern, Denmark in 1943, Jens Peter Agger was a young librarian with a passion for comics. Columnist in the magazine Biblioteksdebate, he works to defend comics, hitherto despised, as an art in its own right. We can say that he is one of the first comic strip activists in his country. In 1969 he created Denmark’s first comic strip exhibition, which he toured in public libraries.
Jens Peder Agger in 1986 by Nikolaj Kirke
Until then, few Franco-Belgian comics were published in Denmark, with the exception of Tintin in the weekly Wax and Tempo. A few specialized bookstores had just been created and our comics were available in French only at the French Institute in Copenhagen. Jens published one of the first reference works on Franco-Belgian comics in Danish in 1972 to promote them.
His chance meeting with Per Carlsenthe founder of the Carlsen house, today still a leading publisher of comics in Denmark, Sweden and Germany, made him a translator of children’s books.
At the same time, comics began to take their place in Denmark, notably thanks to the publisher Henning Kure at Interpresse. Carlsen decided to create his own label, “Comics”, and Jens naturally became its publisher.
Taking advantage of the development of adult comics, Carlsen, already publisher of Tintinadded The Smurfs, Adèle Blanc-Sec, Blake and Mortimer, Buddy Longway, Passengers in the Wind and authors like Enki Bilal, Hugo Pratt or Will Eisner (for which Jens managed the rights for Europe for a time) and this in Danish, Swedish and German.
Little is known but he is also the first publisher of Benoît Peeters as a Hergé specialist in the work Hergé’s World of which he was the architect of the international co-edition, publishing the work the same year of the death ofHerge in 1983.
Some works published by Jens Peder Agger at Carlsen
When Per Carlsen sold his house to the Gutenbergus/Egmont group in 1983, Jens Peder Agger distanced himself and, after three years with the publisher Borgens Forlag, decided to create his own label in 1986: Bogfabrikken, where he published, among other things, little, Will Eisner, Bourgeon, Ralf König, Schuiten & Peeters, Moebius & Jodorowsky, Gotlib, Paul Gillon, Manara, Caza, Gibrat, Winsor McCay, Jacques Tardi, Robert CrumbOr Marina… proof of his curiosity and eclecticism.
Some comics published by Jens at Bogfabrikken
Comic strips – hundreds of them, we cannot forget! – which he often translated himself from French.
We salute with respect this essential passer.
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