Cirkeline (Eng: Circleen) is a Danish comic book character, created by

Hanne Hastrup Hanne is a feminine given name. Notable people with the name include: * Hanne Blank (born 1969), American historian, writer, editor and public speaker * Hanne Budtz (1915–2004), Danish politician and lawyer * Hanne Darboven (born 1941), German ...

in 1957. The character is a little elf with spiky black hair, who wears a red dress with black dots and prefers walking barefoot. Between 1968 and 1971, the comic was adapted for a series of animated shorts, when Hanne Hastrup wrote the scripts and Jannik Hastrup animated and produced 18 short films for the Danish public TV station Danmarks Radio. The last of the short films, ''Flugten Fra Amerika'' (Escape from America) has an anti-American message that prevented it from being broadcast. No new Cirkeline films were released until 1998. The first Cirkeline book was published in 1969, and in 1998, she took the leap to the big cinema screen in the first of 3 feature films. Cirkeline became a brand, which has grown stronger and stronger ever since and today there are 9 books, music CDs and a range of products from underwear to cups and plates. Several of the film's songs, written by Hans-Henrik Ley, have become classics - e.g. "Bim, Bam, Busse" ("Mile, Male, Mole"), "Snemusen Knud" ("Knut the Snowmouse") and "Cirkeline har fødselsdag" ("Circleen's birthday"). The little elf has been loved by children for generations, even having her own app and a crowd of friends on Facebook.

Films

Cirkeline appears in the following animated

feature-length films A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

: * '' Circleen: City Mouse, Cirkeline: Storbyens mus'' (1998, Denmark) * '' Circleen: Mice and Romance, Cirkeline 2: Ost og Kærlighed'' (2000, Denmark) * '' Circleen and World's smallest superhero, Cirkeline og Verdens mindste superhelt (2004, Denmark)''

Stamps

In 2002, Post Danmark (the Danish

postal service The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal syst ...

) made four postage stamp featuring Danish comic book characters. The stamps featured Cirkeline, Valhalla, Rasmus Klump, and

Jungledyret Hugo ''Jungledyret Hugo'' is a Danish media franchise featuring the cartoon adventures of a little primate named Hugo. It was created by Danish author and filmmaker Flemming Quist Møller from a lullaby he made for his son, and later evolved into a full ...

References

Danish comic strips Comics characters introduced in 1957 1957 comics debuts Fictional elves Fantasy comics Fictional Danish people Comics adapted into animated series Comics adapted into television series Comics adapted into animated films {{Comics-char-stub