September 28, 2019

Dutch touch on Amazon’s ‘Undone’ by Amsterdam’s Hisko Hulsing

Filed under: Comics,Film by Orangemaster @ 12:51 pm

Versatile artist Hisko Hulsing from Amsterdam, known on this blog and from Rotterdam-based comic magazine Zone 5300, has directed ‘Undone’, co-created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg (creator of Bojack Horseman) and Kate Purdy (a writer on Bojack), released by Amazon Studios and co-produced by Michael Eisner’s company Tornante, Submarine Productions Amsterdam, and Minnow Mountain Texas. It premiered on 13 September.

Exploring the elastic nature of reality, the series centers around Alma (Rosa Salazar), a 28-year-old living in San Antonio, Texas, who discovers she has a new relationship to time after nearly dying in a car accident. She learns to harness this new ability in order to find out the truth about the death of her father (Bob Odenkirk).

For Undone, Hulsing used rotoscoping together with actual oil-painted backgrounds giving the animation an old school cinematic feel – a fresh change from all of you bored to tears with the Cal Arts style dominating the last decade of animation.

Here’s the trailer:

(Link: dutchcultureusa.com, Image: Hisko Hulsing)

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March 27, 2019

Dog tax: free to over a hundred euros in some places

Filed under: Animals,Comics by Orangemaster @ 2:42 pm

I first heard about a dog tax in a French comic book as a child. A family was playing a record on a turntable of the Skater’s Waltz by Frenchman Émile Waldteufel, sung by dogs, according to the drawings, of course. The family had earlier claimed they did not have a dog and at some point, the dog tax collector came back and gave them a fine for having a lot of dogs after hearing the record through the front door.

Like many things in the Netherlands that make little sense, municipalities often charge very different fees for things that shouldn’t be that different from one place to the next. A quick look at Noord-Brabant has Tilburg (107,86 euro) and Breda (104,55 euro) as the most expensive, followed by Veldhoven (84,18 euro), Den Bosch (83,64 euro) and Eindhoven (77,00 euro).

Municipalities that charge over 100 euro include The Hague and a few other places close to it that border the coast, Groningen way up north, Nijmegen next to Germany. Dog owners in 57 per cent of all municipalities still pay dog tax. One reason for a large amount of municipalities not to charge dog tax is that they need to have collectors and that’s expensive and not always very efficient.

Not only is dog tax apparently the oldest type of tax in the Netherlands, it’s also rarely used for cleaning up dog poop.

For anybody who cares about the situation in Noord-Brabant, feel free to sign a petition in order to get rid of dog tax.

Link: omroepbrabant.nl)

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February 25, 2019

Donald Duck magazine to include homosexuals

Filed under: Comics,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 12:04 pm

The Dutch have youth news on television, and recently 10-year-old called Fenna was interviewed for telling the editors of Donald Duck weekly magazine that there was never any homosexual couples in their magazine, after going through all of the one she had.

Fenna has two mothers and two fathers, and would like to see her favourite magazine represent her reality a bit more, saying that it is important. The editor-in-chief responded that he had never really thought about it, and that they plan to add homosexual couples in the background of stories soon based on her suggestion.

Donald Duck magazine has made steps to become more inclusive before, including an edition dealing with dyslexia and one character in a wheelchair. They are clearly not huge steps, but sometimes it takes a fan who sees things a bit differently to point others in the right direction.

Donald Duck magazine has been offered in Braille, in Frisian, and in an easier-to-read version for children that don’t read.

(Link: ed.nl)

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December 13, 2018

Peet’s Coffee: from Alkmaar to California, by Jasper Houtman

Filed under: Comics,Food & Drink,Literature by Orangemaster @ 2:27 pm

You know how when you learn something new or you have a bit of a fixation about something and you start to see it everywhere? Well, I’ve been listening to podcasts by Nerdrotic, which besides being a fabulous replacement for radio and having nothing to do with 24oranges (it’s mainly about television shows and comics) occasionally plug Peet’s Coffee, which I assumed was just another American coffee company from California with an alternative hipster spelling for Pete.

Except it’s not: it’s originally Dutch (Dutch-American). Editor of Het Financieele Dagblad Jasper Houtman wrote a book this year about coffee legend and founder of Peet’s Coffee, Alfred Peet entitled The Coffee Visionary (In Dutch, ‘De man die de wereld leerde koffie drinken’, ‘The man who taught the world how to drink coffee’). Someone who’s not me really needs to update Peet’s Wikipedia page.

At a time when most Americans drank coffee percolated from canned grounds, the son of a coffee roaster from a small town in the Netherlands [Alkmaar] laid the foundation for specialty coffee in the United States. When Alfred Peet opened Peet’s Coffee, Tea & Spices in Berkeley, California in 1966, and started selling small batches of on-site, hand-roasted coffee beans, the renowned roastmaster had no way of knowing that he was brewing a coffee revolution and defining the coffee culture we know and love today.

Houtman is said to have twenty-five years of experience writing for magazines and newspapers in the Netherlands. Travelling through Guatemala and Honduras in 2004, he became interested in coffee, which led to a fascination for the story of Alfred Peet, who is relatively unknown in the Netherlands. Hope this helps a bit.

(Photo by Suzette Pauwels, some rights reserved)

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November 27, 2016

Saint Pancake, a very real tradition that started in a comic

Filed under: Comics,Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 5:04 pm

saint-pancake-nos_nl

On 29 November the country celebrates Sint Pannekoek (Saint Pancake), notably the people of Rotterdam.

These people will take photos of each other wearing pancakes on their heads, and of course they will eat pancakes. In 2014 (NOS.nl reported back then) hundreds of people took to social media to share the photographic evidence of their pancake wearing ways, and the Koninskerk in Rotterdam organised a pancake feast, the proceeds of which went to charity.

Interestingly, there is no actual Saint Pancake. He and his tradition were made up whole cloth by Jan Kruis for his comic Jan, Jans en de Kinderen (John, Joanie and the Kids) and in turn by his character, grandfather Gerrit, who wanted to get out of having to eat boring beans.

In the strip, grandfather tells the children a strong tale about a cherished childhood tradition: “Mother bakes a huge stack of pancakes and then when the man of the house comes home, everybody puts a pancake on their head and shouts: ‘Dear father, we wish you a happy and blessed Saint Pancake.'” Joanie replies: “I love old traditions!” and changes the dinner she had planned.

Author Jan Kruis, whose comic has been published for decades in leading women’s magazine Libelle, hopes that one day he can get the royal family to wear pancakes on 29 November. “That is my ultimate hope for this tradition”, Kruis told RTV Drenthe two weeks ago.

(Illustration: crop of the comic that started it all by NOS.nl / Jan Kruis)

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June 19, 2016

Most expensive Dutch comics album sells for 6,000 euro

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 7:22 pm

grote-otter-hans-kresse-catawikiOnline auction house Catawiki has sold a comic book by Dutch author Hans Kresse for 6,000 euro last month.

According to Parool, it is the highest price ever paid for a comic book by a Dutch artist.

Kresse’s book, called De Grote Otter (The Great Otter) and believed to have been published in the 1940s, is the only known complete first edition copy—another copy exists, but lacks a cover. Exactly how many copies Kresse or his publisher printed is unknown. A second edition from 1953 had a print run of 2,500 copies.

Later last month Catawiki sold a textless Tintin album for 40,000 euro. The auction house claims that this makes it one of the most expensive comic books ever sold at an auction—a statement that gives blogger and comics collector Popokabaka a fresh opportunity to warn his readers for the apparently stormy relationship the auction house has with the truth. Several copies of Tintin alone, the blogger claims, have sold in the past five years for considerably more than that.

In 2010, Belgian Marc Sleen’s Doris Dobbel sold for 12,000 euro, making it the most expensive comic book written in the Dutch language.

(Illustration: Catawiki)

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November 7, 2014

What happens when aliens abduct you

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 10:00 am

dirkjan-heerst-studio-mooves

Dirkjan is a popular Dutch gag strip by Mark Retera. Now and again his co-conspirators Remco Polman and Wilfred Ottenheijm, who are part of animation studio Mooves, break out the onion skins and transfer their hero to celluloid.

In ‘Dirkjan Heerst’ (‘Dirkjan Rules’) the eponymous hero finds out exactly what his life is worth in the eyes of aliens from outer space. The short was released in 2010 when it was shown before Jackass 3 in Dutch film theatres. Last week Mooves released it to Vimeo.

It doesn’t have any actual talking, so enjoy.

(Disclosure: Remco, Wilfred and I go way back. Together with a few others we ran a comics fanzine in the 1990s called ‘Iris’ which later spun off an illustration studio of the same name, which even later became Mooves.)

(Photo: cropped screen capture of the short film)

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September 24, 2014

Cartoon bombing French-style in Amsterdam

Filed under: Art,Comics by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

David Troquier

French freelance art director and illustrator David Troquier working in Amsterdam draws cartoons on small notepads which he then props up in amusing places in Amsterdam to build stories, something he calls “cartoon bombing”. He also recently started a cartoon blog called RandomDam, with bits and bobs about Amsterdam. His cartoons are funny and have a refreshing take on simple things.

Troquier came to Amsterdam after having worked in Paris for eight years. He wanted a change of scenery and chose for Amsterdam because of its creative reputation. When asked whether his expectations were met he says: “Yes, definitely, Amsterdam is a city alive, with really cool and inspiring people.”

(Link: www.amsterdamadblog.com)

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August 10, 2014

Miffy creator Dick Bruna retired two years ago

Filed under: Comics,Design by Branko Collin @ 10:34 pm

miffy-tdf-2014-thomas-bresson

Last month the retirement of 86-year-old Miffy creator Dick Bruna was suddenly world news. But there was nothing newsworthy about that fact according to Stadsblad Utrecht: Bruna retired two years ago.

“News about nothing”, Marja Kerkhof called it. She is the manager of publisher Mercis, the company that will continue to release new Miffy books based on an archive of Dick Bruna’s drawings of the past 60 years. “We will only use original drawings by Dick Bruna. We will not be using other artists.” Bruna has made over 3,000 Miffy drawings. Currently there are about 130 Miffy books.

Kerkhof used the sudden attention for Bruna’s retirement to squash rumours that the artist suffers from dementia in AD: “When I see him, and I visit him regularly, he knows exactly who I am, where we’ve met and how long we’ve known each other.”

Next year Bruna’s studio will be moved to and exhibited at Centraal Museum in Utrecht. The same year the start of the Tour de France in Utrecht, Bruna’s home town, will be Miffy-themed.

(Photo of Miffy in un-Bruna-like garb at this year’s Tour de France by Thomas Bresson, some rights reserved)

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July 14, 2014

Funny reflections on everyday life by Anne Stalinski

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 2:42 pm

daily-stalinski

The name Daily Stalinksi promises daily updates of Anne Stalinski’s comics (as does the subtitle), but I think it would be better to read this as “reflections on the daily life of …” because the updates currently only appear every three or four days.

Anne Stalinski won the Comik Web Award for young, web-based talent earlier this year. Stalinski’s humour is a little cliché at times (A, in a dramatic voice: “Why haven’t I been invited?” B: “Did you want to go?” A: “No, of course not!”), but always good for a smile, which is all you can ask from a free web comic.

Shown here: “My good friend Pirmin has a tattoo. I asked him why. ‘Oh Anne… It happened on my 16th birthday…’ I expected a more elaborate explanation. It never came.”

Anne and her equally creative sister Eva hail from Haren in Groningen, a town famous for its botanical garden and its riots, and publish a fanzine together called Zuster.

(Illustration: Daily Stalinski, link: Holly Moors)

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