Ernst Gervin

Ernst Gervin is best remembered as the Norwegian editor and writer who shepherded the beloved comic *91 Stomperud* through its early years and later oversaw the Norwegian edition of *Donald Duck & Co*. He was born Ernst Ancher Hanssen on 6 December 1908 in Norway, legally changing his surname to Gervin in 1948. His career in periodicals began early: he served as editor-in-chief of *Norsk Ukeblad* from 1934 to 1952, then moved to *Hjemmet* from 1952 to 1964. From 1965 until 1976, he worked for publisher Gutenbergshus, where he was responsible for the Norwegian *Donald Duck & Co*.

Gervin’s most notable co-creation was *91 Stomperud*, a comic strip that debuted in 1937 with Gervin as its textwriter. During the Nazi occupation of Norway, the strip’s subtle mockery of the occupying forces led to *Norsk Ukeblad* being shut down for four weeks in 1942. The following year, Gervin and caricaturist Gunnar Bratlie were imprisoned at Grini concentration camp from 23 February to 24 May 1943, after publishing a caricature of Vidkun Quisling as a wobbling ice skater steadied by a man with a Hitler mustache.

In 1963, a mild controversy arose when the Donald Duck story *Lost in the Andes!* was translated into Norwegian as *Eggemysteriet*; translator Vivi Aagaard’s use of an archaic, garbled Nynorsk dialect for the mountain-dwellers was widely seen as an insult, drawing media attention through Norway’s language struggle. Gervin died on 27 January 1978 and was buried in Ullern.