When I was little almost every child in Germany knew this fire salamander called Lurchi. He was the hero of his own comic series together with his friends Unkerich, Piping, Hopps, Mäusepiep and Igel.

The little booklets were not for sale, you got them from a chain of shoe stores called Salamander.

The stories were in doggerel rhymes and the pictures were wonderfully detailed and beautifully drawn. Later they were made into books, still sold at the shoe shops.

The stories usually ended with a banquet or some other festivities (Asterix sends his regards), this one is from the winter olympics, and the last sentence was always: “Salamander lebe hoch!” (Long live Salamander!) – more often than not the rhyming was a bit forced.

These days, Lurchi is still around but he is not as dominant any more, he has met with competition in the shoe as well as the comic business. The booklets have been modernized, the drawings are much more blunt. But he is still his old friendly self, it seems.

One Word Sunday: Fame