Welcome to part 1 of my comic Death and the Maiden. Please read the following introduction before continuing with the story.

This is the online version of the printed comic (only in German). Compared with the old online version, this one contains numerous additional strips which make it easier to understand the plot and build up to what's going to come in part 2. In a few cases, some strips had to be altered to fit the printed version. In this case, the original strip is added AFTER the altered one and discernible by a little lower case in its numbering.

Part 1 was created as a commissioned work by the Austrian Broadcasting Company for their website (which offered multiple online comics and cartoons). I was completely free regarding the story and content, the only more or less mandatory criterium was the strip format. I started out with this story, not knowing how big it would become. The initial idea was merely Death incarnate meeting a young woman on the highway and pursuing her (in order to take her life). The earliest strips therefore contain a lot of slapstick jokes, some of them aged fairly well, some didn't. As the story went on and I figured out where I wanted to go with it, the coarse humor is reduced for the benefit of the storyline.

WARNING:

Please be aware that this story contains a lot of dark humor. Its main character is Death, after all, so people are going to die, even children. This may affect some readers negatively, hence the notice.
I am writing these words in 2021, the world is in the midst of a pandemic for one year now. The approach to Death, even in fiction, is completely different these days than it was 20 years ago. I adhere to my story, because I know where it will go, but some jokes at the very beginning might seem a bit off by today's standards. Since this was how the story started, however, I keep them as they were.