Summer!

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It's been only two weeks since I started this newsletter and it's already making a world of difference to me. I love being able to communicate directly with you, instead of scattering info all over the socials (I'm still on Facebook). Some of you have let me know how much you appreciate these comics ramblings of mine, and that really makes my day, my week - my summer!

Yes, it's summer! Time for some summer-themed comics from the archive!

Stella is a comic that started in 2005 in magazine Flo', continued in magazine Hoe Overleef Ik in 2012 and is now reprinted in kids comic magazine Jump.

I loved Stella - she is a combination of myself when I was young and my stepdaughter Ellen (who was Stella’s age when the comic started). I love depicting the imaginative, creative world of girls this age and capturing those special friendships they form.

That said: the comic above is from 2012 and now, more than ten years later, I would do it a little different. I would change Judith's comment about being fat - weight issues are still a huge thing for teenage girls, often resulting in various degrees of eating disorders that stay with them the rest of their lives. Working for girls magazine Tina taught me that you don't want to encourage that way of thinking, not even in jest.

There are a lot of examples of the New Censorship that I don't like, but in this case I agree. Why put in a remark about weight/fat at all? If we think kids should not be worried about such issues, it's best to leave it out altogether.

Here's the summer of 2008 as experienced by my oldest comic character Minnie (Mijntje in Dutch) and her girlfriend Mia:

No worries: even after fifteen more summers like this, Minnie and Mia are still together. Their comics appear in magazine StripGlossy and online at zijaanzij.nl.

The media-week that was

All of these were in Dutch:

- My very last appearance as co-host on the Stripjournaal Podcast!

- Nina Blom was on TV to talk about our graphic novel Jij gaat dood:

- I was a guest in the livestream of BammerdeBam, with Jacarrino Dost, André Kikker and Marvin Lancel. We had a great conversation!

The asked me my top 5 Favorite Comics. I came up with these:

- I grew up on Duck-stories by Carl Barks, in these colorful albums that were published in The Netherlands during the 1980s

- Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson, and specifically this Tenth Anniversary Book, which contains a preface explaining things about the newspaper- and syndicate business in the US that I found highly interesting and revealing.

- MetaMaus: I love glimpses behind the scenes of comics making, and this hefty book gives all kinds of background information on the making of the famous classic graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman.

- De Dikke Stok: the collected works of my colleague Barbara Stok. Seeing her autobiographical comics in the late 1990s made me want to get into comics too.

- Sandman. Because it's sooo good. And because the comic is so much better even than the (admittedly splendid, but a little boring) Netflix-series. This proves to me that some stories just work best in their own medium. Sandman belongs in comics. Period.

(If I’m asked again for a Top 5 in the future, I might have a different list - Sandman and Calvin & Hobbes are always on there though!)

That’s it. Have a great sunny weekend!