Draft:Bülent Arabacıoğlu

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Bülent Arabacıoğlu

Bülent Arabacıoğlu

Bülent Arabacıoğlu (August 11, 1950, Eskişehir) is aTurkish comic book artist, cartoonist, who gained worldwide fame for his comics about Tipitip and Heroic Ridvan (turk. En Kahraman Rıdvan) [1]

Life and work

Bulent Arabacıoğlu was born on August 11, 1950 in the Turkish city of Eskisehir. Since childhood, he loved to draw everything around him - friends, houses, mountains, comics with adventures in notebooks and school notebooks. His parents supported his son's passion and sent him to study at an art school. After graduating from secondary and art school in 1968, he went to study in Istanbul. Initially, he planned to enroll in the Yildiz Technical University as an architect, but at the persuasion of the elders, he entered the profession of a geodesist-cartographer, which was more promising at that time [2].

After graduating from university in 1972 and pocketing a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Cartographic Engineering of the Istanbul State Academy of Engineering Architecture, Bulent realizes that his true love is drawing, and begins working for a minimum wage in a West German agency producing cartoons and comics abroad. In 1973, he went to work as a cartoonist and illustrator for one of the largest newspapers in Turkey - Hürriyet, for which he draws an emblem, and joins the team of cartoonists in the comic magazine Çarşaf, created within the same publishing house, and also publishes his work in the magazines Gırgır, Hıbır, HBR Maymun and Dinozor [3].

In 1974, Bulent married Turkan Bokala, whom he had loved since high school. For many years, she becomes his muse and reliable assistant.

Tipitip chewing gum wrapper

During this period, Bulent Arabacıoğlu received an offer to create a "comic book character for a new chewing gum with inserts." At that time, it did not have a name yet. After drawing 10 different characters, he went to a meeting with the seven-person board of directors at the Kent Gıda Sanayi A.Ş factory together with representatives of the agency that made him this offer. In the presentation at the meeting, he explained what a special character each character should have. Everyone liked the character of the Tipitype. His long rocket-shaped nose, hat, glasses, bow tie, short stature and small tummy seemed funny and attractive. The name of the character - TipiTip (TipiTip - typical type) arose spontaneously after the words "he has a typical appearance" were heard during the discussion, what a "characteristic type". The name of the chewing gum also became the name of the main character .

After Bulent came up with and drew the first part of the comics with the Type for the Kent Gıda company (70 pieces), the drawings were sent to a printing house in Germany. In those years, Turkey did not have a high-quality printing system that allowed printing inserts (printing with a rotary coil). After a while, he is called up for military service. After completing his military service and returning to Istanbul, Kent makes him an offer to shoot 60-second animated commercials for Tipitip with broadcast on television every week. For 55 seconds, it was supposed to show a funny story about Tipitip, and for the last 5 seconds the slogan sounded: "Your funny friend Tipitip!" and an advertisement for chewing gum [4].

In 1977, Bulent, who at that time had no experience in creating cartoons, left the newspaper Hürriyet, where he worked, and, together with his friend Atesh Beniche, who had such experience, founded the "Tipitip Agency" for the production of cartoons. Over the course of 3 years, a total of 52 one-minute cartoons were created, which is a record for Turkey, sometimes at the rate of one cartoon per week, which was quite difficult in the difficult economic situation in Turkey at that time. Due to the acute shortage of materials - film, acetate, paints, all this had to be searched on the black market and ordered through friends in Germany. A team of 7-8 people worked on the cartoons, including Bulent's wife, Turkan.

These one-minute cartoons were broadcast on the Turkish black-and-white television channel TRT every week on Fridays. These cartoons became very popular among children and they were looking forward to the release of a new episode. However, Bulent Arabacıoğlu and his team decided to create full-fledged color cartoons, with the possibility of showing them in cinemas in Turkey. The Kent management approved of this idea and as a result, several five-minute cartoons about the adventures of Tipitip were created. The character of Tipitip was voiced by the famous Turkish comedian Shener Shen .

In 1980, Kent Gida stopped advertising Tipitip chewing gum on television. Bulent and his colleagues are starting to publish the children's magazine Vesti from Tipitipa and send it to the addresses of more than 15,000 children with a monthly subscription. This added even more love and popularity to the Tipitip character.

However, with the deterioration of the economic situation, Bulent Arabacıoğlu closes the Tipitipa agency and returns to work on comics and cartoons in the humorous magazine Gırgır. During this period of time, he came up with another comic book character - "The Most heroic Ridvan" (En Kahraman Rıdvan), which is not inferior in popularity in Turkey to the Tipitip. In 1989, together with 25 of his friends, Bulent began publishing the humorous magazine Hibir.

In 1992, representatives of the Kent Gida company offered Bulent Arabacıoğlu to start working as a manager at their factory. There, a "Packaging and Graphics Department" is being created, consisting of 14-16 people, chaired by one of the owners of the company, and the release of not only comics about Tipitipa, which are used as inserts for chewing gum, but also the development of graphics for a number of new products such as Jelibon, Bonibon, Topitop begins.

In the following years, he published examples of this species in other journals and with special studies. These panoramic works have also attracted attention from the advertising sector and some private companies have created calendars, posters, etc. it was used in materials. A study of the animal kingdom was also applied to a surface surrounded by 40 meters at the vremya Holiday Entertainment Center.

In 1998, constant stress and smoking undermine the artist's health and he underwent coronary bypass surgery.

In 2006, Kent Gıda A.Ş. was bought out by the British company Cadbury and Bulent began working as Deputy General Director and art consultant at the graphic design and advertising agency ArtPoint.

Currently, Bulent Arabacıoğlu, although retired, continues to work at the ArtPoint advertising agency and teach at Istanbul University. He also remotely creates comics about the Type for the owner of this brand, the American company Mondelez International [5].

Bibliography

• En kahraman Rıdvan -PİSLİK- (Mürekkep Yayınları 2010)
• En Kahraman Rıdvan -ROBOTLAR- (Mürekkep Yayınları Nisan 2011)
• En Kahraman Rıdvan -BANKER- (Mürekkep Yayınları Ekim 2011)
• En Kahraman Rıdvan -HONG KONG'DA- (Mürekkep Yayınları Mart 2012)
• En Kahraman Rıdvan -BABA RIDVAN- (Mürekkep Yayınları Temmuz 2012)
• En Kahraman Rıdvan -AŞIK OLUYOR- (Mürekkep Yayınları Mart 2013)
• En Kahraman Rıdvan -OMİSTAN- (Mürekkep Yayınları Ocak 2014)