Razor Kemal is 50 Years Old | Mehmet Berk Yaltırık

I told this suggestion to Mıstık brother the next day. “Of course,” he said. “I'll show it to the newspapers, but first you have to create a hero. "Not without heroes." When I asked for his suggestion, he asked me to prepare an efe character. So I tried to do it. “This did not happen. Doesn't he say, "Old Istanbul became a bully?"

In those days, I read Refii Cevat Ulunay's Eski İstanbul Yosması , Sayılı Fırtınalar , Ahmet Rasim's Muharrir Bu Ya and Fuhş-i Atik , for the umpteenth time.

“Then we are making a novel about the old Istanbul bully,” I said. My hero was ready. When I was a young boy of 16-17 years old, I would wander around the neighborhood with my friends and engage in arm wrestling. Among the cafes in this district, there were also coffee houses with a long history that could be considered historical. I also read Salâh Birsel 's The Book of Coffees in those years. We used to listen to stories about bullying in those cafes. In fact, in those years, Üsküdar had plenty of crazy people and brave men. I also heard about Master Kemal from Üsküdar from old uncles and grandfathers during these arm wrestling visits, and I was impressed. Because I met this Master Kemal in the Hospice I went to with my grandmother when I was a child. I was sure it was him. He gave me a notebook in an engraved brass box. It had his name on it, Master Kemal. Unfortunately, I gave it to the filmmakers while the series was being shot, and it never came back.

I quickly prepared four bands, horizontal bands with three squares each. Mıstık brother left the production at 9.00 that morning to go to Günaydın newspaper. At exactly 10.30 the phone rang. The caller was Mıstık brother.

“I showed his tapes to calligrapher Nezih (Dündar) brother, who in turn showed them to Haldun (Simavi) Bey. Haldun Bey said, 'Let that child continue his novel and we will publish it.'" Of course I couldn't believe my ears. Who am I, only 22-23 years old, and who is working in a star newspaper like Günaydın? Dear Mıstık brother also gave his support and said: “You continue working here at your desk. "Just draw your graphic novels and answer my phones while I'm away," he said. I cannot pay the rights of Mengü Ertel and Mustafa Eremektar, if it were not for them, I think Razor Kemal would not exist.

Thus, Razor Kemal was published in many newspapers for 35 years. Printed in Germany, Australia and Libya. It was published as a weekly magazine. TV series were shot twice. I think he has 4-5 albums in bookstores.

What special technique did you use when drawing Razor Kemal ? How did you blend line art with your interest in photography?

I can say that the painting style in Razor Kemal occurred spontaneously. Because there was no master I could take as an example in terms of style. It was just before I started working on comics professionally... At that time, I was working from a dream, but I felt like there was something missing. Still, I didn't want to imitate a local or foreign master. I was confident in myself. One day I received a Vampirella album. There was a photo of Vampirella on the back cover. Yes, it's a drawing, not a photograph. So Vampirella was a model girl! At that moment, a light went on inside me. “Then they work from the model and the photograph,” I said. I already had two cameras since middle school. I also learned darkroom photography with Mr. Mengü. I immediately got to work.

I immediately started taking photographs for my comic strip, Üsküdarlı Usta Kemal. My first model was Mıstık Brother (Kolcu Raif). My second model was Nevzat, the tea seller of Adıyaman Han. He gave his nickname himself: Ağır Batarya Çaycı Nevzat. I was also Master Kemal. And I started taking photos of all my friends. 20 squares portrait, 20 squares bust, 20 squares height. And in my mind, pictures of fights. I worked day and night. In a short time, I had a photo archive of 10-15 people. Now, in order to transfer these photographs to the drawing paper without any errors, an antiscope (a vertical projection that enlarges the picture when lifted up and reflects it on the paper, and reduces it when lowered) was needed. Mengü Bey had two spares in his possession. He agreed to sell me one, and I bought it in installments. I mounted it on the wall of Mıstık Production.

But what about the funds, the background? In those years, my father called me 'cemetery painter'. I always made paintings of Karacaahmet Cemetery. I would add one or two old houses to my ecoline paintings. I immediately went and bought two spotlights. Also, a foot on my 6x6 lubutel... I taped my cemetery and old house paintings to a wall and turned on the spotlights and obtained their negatives. And I printed these negatives on matte photo papers. After drawing and painting the human figures, which was the first plan, I carefully cut out the outer contours with precision scissors and pasted them onto the background images printed on matte paper, adjusting their perspective.

One day, after my illustrated novel was published, the great master Suat Yalaz called me and said: "Yav Haldun, how do you create such detailed backgrounds over and over again behind each picture? It's a pity for your eyes." That was my background technique.

Now let's talk about my painting technique... I don't think there is any graphic novelist who practices this. This style will die with me. However, it is a style that gives excellent results without doing anything additional. I would draw the contours of human figures with India ink and cast shadows on the figures with diluted ecolines. Classic ecoline work. While I was making my graphic novel, there was a four-pack ecoline nest made of cardboard in front of me. On the far left is a very light gray ecoline, next to it is grey, next to it is black ecoline, and on the far right is India ink... One day, without realizing it, I dipped the scanning tip into black ecoline rather than into India ink and drew the black contours with black ecoline number 700. When the contour work was completed, I dipped my size 10 habico watercolor brush into the lightest gray and gave my contours the usual shade. Oh what is that!? The contour melts! A trace remains, but it melts and gradient transitions and very nice fluctuations occur on their own. If the amount of water in the brush is high, the ripples become very enthusiastic; if it is low, slight ripples occur on their own. I was amazed to see that there was a wonderful harmony. After that day, I immediately gave up India ink and started drawing all the contours with a scanning tip dipped in black ecoline. Here is my technique and style in short.

Razor Kemal was adapted for television twice, in 1996 and 2012. You played Razor Kemal in the 1996 adaptation. What would you like to say about these adaptations?

The 1996 series was based entirely on the scripts I wrote. All of them had a semi-documentary nature. Each episode was a separate adventure in itself. It was prepared by paying attention to the politics and customs of the period in which it took place. I had tried theater in high school and in the following years, it was not difficult to create my own hero. While you have been creating your hero with his style and character for years, it is now increasingly confused whether you created him or he created you. If I remember correctly, the manager who was responsible for the TV series at ATV in those days, his name was Ekrem, said let's start immediately and we rolled up our sleeves within a month. Our series, which was broadcast during primetime hours, was at the top with a 17 percent viewing share, even though there were World Cup matches in those months, and was repeated on Sundays. Everything was going very well and we had very good scripts that I had written as a result of years of research, but our series was taken off the air when we shot the eighth episode.

The 2012 series was not shot according to the scripts and documents I gave. They continued shooting with other scenarios. Here, “Tatavla Greek bullies are bad, Turkish bullies are good guys. With the approach of "Turkish bullies beat, Greek bullies get beaten"... However, Razor Kemal is not a racist story. In old Istanbul, Greeks, Armenians, Jews and Levantines all lived amicably, lived as neighbours, and celebrated each other's holidays. In other words, Razor Kemal is a humanist story. It describes the brave morality of the common people.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers did not produce the real Razor Kemal, but rather what they made up in their minds. When reactions to their racism began to come in, they added the text "Themes are taken from Haldun Sevel " to the credits. However, it was our friend Baykut Badem who wrote the scripts for the series.

Again, I did not interfere because I had abandoned life and was living in my modest boat on the seas... The lives of people with their ambition to gain no longer had any place in my natural life. Shooting of the series was stopped after the 13th episode. And I said oh.

You shared a memory about the years of War of Independence and Atatürk on social media. We also know that you benefited from the documents provided by the late second-hand bookseller Tayfun Kurt regarding the years of occupation of Istanbul. Can you talk about these?

My grandmother, Behice Leman Koç, experienced the years of occupation of Istanbul, the pain, fear, hunger, and suffered from tuberculosis due to neglect. He used to tell me about those occupation days when I was a child. Once he showed something with his tears. I couldn't understand why he was crying then. Now I feel it inside me. Three or four slices of dry bread wrapped in cheesecloth and a handful of dried olives... "When our army entered Istanbul, these were the only things left in our wire cabinet at home, son, we had nothing else to eat," he said. In those dark days, the making, selling and especially hanging of the Turkish flag should have been forbidden. Ms. Leman used to say that she made a Turkish flag with needle and thread in her home, confident that Mustafa Kemal Pasha would save them one day. When I asked what happened next, he would wipe his eyes and continue. It was October, the enemy ships had not left yet. Little children shouted and announced that Turkish soldiers were coming from Kadıköy. They, the street children, were called 'Snotty Heroes'. They sold the Anatolian newspapers of a few days ago, which were about Mustafa Kemal and Turkish soldiers, on the streets, screaming, they were beaten by the occupation soldiers, they were bleeding from their mouths and noses, they shared the newspapers of their friends who were not caught, and they continued to sell them, crying. Ms. Leman would wipe the faces and eyes of these children and apply ointment to their wounds. When the 'snot-nosed heroes' screamed and announced that the Turkish soldier was coming from Kadıköy... Ms. Leman immediately wrapped my mother, the baby Kamile, in a tablecloth and took her on her back... She took the Turkish flag tied to a flat stick in her hand, and while she was emaciated and emaciated with tuberculosis, Salacak Bostan started running down the street. He went from the lower street of İhsaniye to the Harem, then, in a fit of rage, in front of the Selimiye barracks and caught up with our soldiers near the health school. Years later, I learned that the name of the party that entered the Anatolian side of Istanbul before the enemy left was the Demir Fırka. Their commander is Hüseyin Hüsnü (Erkilet) Pasha. My grandmother ran to the cavalry in front with her baby on her back. He hugged his boots and rubbed the dust from his boots on his face and cheeks. That's how he said it, with tears in his eyes. My grandfather İsmail Hakkı Kaptan from Üsküdar used to say, "If I haven't arrived yet when the morning adhan is called, immediately run away to Çamlıca with baby Kamile on my back to her relatives." One morning, the call to prayer was recited and İsmail Hakkı Kaptan was not present. At noon, the adhan was recited and none was present. Ms. Leman and baby Kamile were left alone. The rest is long...

I grew up listening to these, so even though I didn't experience the occupation of Istanbul, it left a pain in my heart as if I had. In Razor Kemal, I researched and explained the Absolutism period until 84-85. Here are Direklerini, Aksaraylı Twelve, Zina Hill (originally Sena hill) Palace spies, Badass Fehim Pasha, Seven Eight Hasan Pasha, Kâğıthane pleasures, Cadde-i Kebir torchlight processions, Tatavla rowdies, confinements, racon-cutting old bullies, Circassian Arif and Matlı. Mustafa, etc., etc. Then, I talked about the Constitutional Monarchy period, the Committee of Union and Progress until the 90s, until the congresses… The Bulgarians coming to the gates of Istanbul and the Bab-i Ali raid, that is, the revolution with five people, then the assassination of Mahmut Şevket Pasha and the 31 March. I described and illustrated the reactionary uprising and the arrival of the Movement army to Istanbul.

On the other hand, I always saved the occupation of Istanbul for last and did not touch that issue out of fear. I thought I lacked knowledge on this subject. I completed this deficiency thanks to the efforts of my dear friend, the late Çınardibi Sahaf Tayfun. I made Word of Honor and Unnamed Heroes in the Occupation of Istanbul . It is interesting that I met Çınardibi Tayfun. I was looking for a book. I went in and asked. There was. "Can I get?" I said. “Have you read The Mount of Olives ?” asked. When I say I haven't read it, doesn't he say, "I won't sell that book to a man who hasn't read The Mount of Olives ?"... Whoops! But I like it, it's crazy. I mean, because I like people who engage face to face, like Nazım Hikmet. I don't like people who hit me from behind. “Okay,” I said, “Give me I will read The Mount of Olives , I will come and tell you about it, but if you say you sold it when I come, you will pick up all your books from the floor.” He glared at me, but brought the Mount of Olives and gave it to me. I gave him the money and he didn't take it. He said, "If you don't come to buy that book, you can't enter this shop again." As I was leaving, I said, "You prepare the tea, I'll be back in two days," and left. We became very good friends after that day.

Interview: Mehmet Berk Yaltırık