In June 1991, German comics publisher Ehapa announced its plans to conquer Europe. In a bid to overtake its main rival Carlsen, Ehapa sought to free itself from dependence upon licensed imports such as the Disney comics and Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées that had made its fortune, and develop its own exportable properties. This seemed feasible, in the hope of an expanded German market due to the reunification of West and East Germany, and with an eye to the coming European Single Market of 1993. Ehapa’s chief weapon: Zeitzocker (Time Gamers), a sci-fi fantasy, drawn in the Franco-Belgian style, featuring a time-travelling young trio bent on saving the future from the dictatorship of a combined bank and church called “BoMB.” This series, projected for fourteen albums, was intended to be “the new German Astérix,” and the basis of a “new German wave” of comics.

Sadly, these ambitions came to nothing. Differences between Ehapa’s timeline and the artists’ goals led to the series’ cancellation after only two albums, still two years short of the Single Market. The anticipated multimedia merchandising tie-ins, other than a maxi-single record with three songs by the comedy-rock group Rodgau Monotones, never materialized. And the German comics market failed to expand; rather, it proved to be already unsustainably glutted. Instead of becoming a marketing triumph, the Zeitzocker fiasco demonstrated that even major German publishers were faced with an small, unstable and marginal comics market that left little room to nurture homegrown artists over the long term; conditions that would last until the arrival of Japanese manga at the end of the decade.