Willy Vandersteen

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Vandersteen (1985)
Signature Vandersteen 1968

Willebrord Jan Frans Maria Vandersteen (born February 15, 1913 in Antwerp ; † August 28, 1990 ) was the author of various successful comic series, in particular of Suske en Wiske (German: Suske and Wiske ).

Live and act

Willy Vandersteen attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp from 1928 to 1935 , where he took the subjects of sculpture and ornamentation. At the same time he was active in the boy scout movement, where he made many drawings and comics for private use under the name »Schlauer Fuchs«, including a sequel to Hergés Totor . From 1936 he worked as a shop window decorator.

In 1940 Vandersteen created the comic strip Kitty Inno for the department store A l'ínnovation , which appeared in the in-house newspaper Entre nous . The main character of this humorous strip is a saleswoman at À l'innovation. From 1941 Vandersteen also published in the daily De Dag . Strips like Tor, de holbewoner , Pudifar and Barabitje were created . In 1942, Vandersteen started working as an illustrator for the press and propaganda service of the Agriculture and Food Corporation in Brussels. In the same year he also made illustrations under the pseudonym "Kaproen" for the book Zóó zag Brussel de Dietsche Militanten (for example: This is how Brussels saw the German army ). In this book, the deployment of the German army in Brussels in July 1942 with texts by Bert Peleman was prepared for propaganda purposes in the interests of the National Socialists.

In 1943 Vandersteen drew the Simbat de zeerover series for the weekly Bravo . In the same year, Vandersteen's first comic album, Piwo, het houten paard, was released. Two more albums with Piwo followed in 1944 and 1946 .

Suske and Wiske

Statue of Willy Vandersteen with Suske and Wiske in Hasselt

On March 30, 1945, the first episode of the story De avonturen van Rikki en Wiske appeared in the daily newspaper De Nieuwe Standaard . The main characters were brother (Rikki) and sister (Wiske). Also there were Wiskes doll Schanulleke and their aunt: Sidonie. At the center of the story is the "rocket tank," the invention of an absent-minded engineer whose job it is to end wars faster so that new ones can be started more quickly.

Wiske met the boy Suske in the second story, Op het eiland Amoras , which was published on December 19, 1945. From that point on, the two were inseparable. Rikki disappeared from the series and did not reappear until 2003. Professor Barabas was also there from the second episode. Lambik, another main character in the series, made her first appearance in the third story De sprietatoom . Jerom (Eng .: Wastl) joined the story De dolle musketiers in 1952 .

In 1948 Karel Van Milleghem, the editor-in-chief of Kuifje , the Flemish version of Tintin , approached Vandersteen and offered him to draw a weekly Suske and Wiske page for Kuifje . Vandersteen accepted the offer because he saw an opportunity to make his series known to a French-speaking audience. By 1958, eight album-length stories were created, which were later reprinted as albums in the so-called "Blue Series".

In the so-called "Red Series", on the other hand, the stories that had previously been published in the newspapers were reprinted. By the end of 1971, Vandersteen drew a little over 70 stories here before handing the series over to his colleague Paul Geerts .

Family Snoek and other series of gags

From the end of 1945 Vandersteen drew the series De familie Snoek based on scenarios by Wim Goderis . Every week a page from this series appeared in the newspaper with a closed gag. By the beginning of 1954, 404 pages came together, the majority of which were collected in eleven albums. The series tells of the everyday experiences of the eponymous family, which consists of the father Leonard, the mother Marie, the teenage daughter Gaby and the child Sloeber. The driving force behind the gags is usually the clumsiness of the father.

In 1965, the series was revived by Vandersteen and first appeared in the children's magazine Pats and later in the television illustrated TV-Ekspres . Eduard De Rop and Eugeen Goossens assisted Vandersteen with the drawings . In 1972 De familie Snoek ended again. The new material was collected in seven other albums.

Other series of gags that Vandersteen drew over the decades included De vrolijke bengels (from 1946), De grappen van Lambik (from 1949), 't Prinske (from 1953) and Het plezante circus (from 1954). De vrolijke bengels tells of the pranks of the children Poliet (inventor), Patatje (food bag), Pontius and Pilatus (twins who speak in rhymes) and Vlooike (the only girl). In March 1950 this group of children was replaced by Suske and Wiske. The series title De vrolijke bengels was retained. In April 1953 the original group came back. De grappen van Lambik describes the misfortunes of Lambik, one of the main characters from Suske en Wiske .

Bessy and other realistic series

Inspired by the Lassie films, Vandersteen developed the Collie bitch Bessy as the main character in a series of the same name in 1952. The place of the action should be the Wild West. The newspaper De Standaard refused to publish the new series, however, as it had already published Suske en Wiske and De familie Snoek . Therefore, Bessy first appeared in French in the daily newspaper La Libre Belgique . It wasn't until almost a year later that a Flemish magazine, Ons Volk, took over the series. Karel Verschuere worked for Bessy .

The series Karl May (German at Wick Comics), which Vandersteen designed from 1962, also takes place in the Wild West . In the Middle Ages, on the other hand, the series De Rode Ridder (German under the title Der Rote Ritter, initially published by Harro Knersch Verlag, later by Wick Comics). The main character of this series, published since 1959, is the knight Johan. Vandersteen only provided the scenarios here. Karel Verschuere and Eduard De Rop, among others, acted as draftsmen.

In 1965, Vandersteen was made aware by a Standaard employee, Henk van der Heyden, that the rights to "Biggles", a series of novels by the author William Earl Johns about a pilot and adventurer, had become free. This series of novels has been published since 1932 and in 1965 already comprised more than 80 titles. Vandersteen now devised the scenarios for Biggles , while Karel Verschuere and later Karel Biddeloo were responsible for the drawings. It was also Karel Biddeloo who, from 1969 onwards, implemented Vandersteen's scenarios for the series Safari set in Africa (German by Rädler Verlag).

Robert and Bertrand

Ever since Vandersteen had read the novel Robert en Bertrand by Raf Verhulst in his youth , he repeatedly toyed with the idea of ​​casting these characters in comic form. In 1972 the time had finally come. Robert and Bertrand's first story, Mysterie op Rozendael , appeared in the daily De Standaard on November 30, 1972 . In the story, which takes place at the end of the 19th century, in addition to the two vagrants Robert and Bertrand, two other characters are introduced that should appear again and again in the series: Number 17, a police officer, and Joeki, an orphan from Moldova .

By 1985 Vandersteen had created 67 stories around the two characters before passing the series on to Marck Meul (text) and Ron van Riet (drawings). The 16th adventure, De Stakingbrecher , won the award for the best non-French-language album at the 1977 Angoulême comic festival.

The Geusen

After Vandersteen had handed over responsibility for Robert en Bertrand , he began in 1985 with a work on the Geusen and the Eighty Years War . As early as 1954/55 he had dedicated himself to this period with the two- parter Tijl Uilenspiegel (German 1980/81 at Becker & Knigge). The main characters of De Geuzen are the troubadour and freedom fighter Hannes, the farmer's daughter Veerle and the farmhand Tamme. As a special feature, an etching by Pieter Bruegel was reproduced at the end of each album .

By his death in 1990, Vandersteen had completed ten album-length stories. The series was not continued after his death at Vandersteen's express request.

More comics by Willy Vandersteen (selection)

In addition to the works mentioned in the previous paragraph, Vandersteen drew and wrote a wealth of other comics, some of which should be named here as examples:

  • De avonturen van Judi, from 1952
  • Jerom (German Wastl ), from 1960
  • Pats, from 1974
  • Schanulleke, from 1986

In addition, since 2012 Adhemar has published a series of shorter works by Vandersteen from the 1940s and 1950s under the title Uit de archieven van Willy Vandersteen .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Peter van Hooydonck: Willy Vandersteen, Standaard Uitgeverij, Antwerp 1994
  2. ↑ De Standaard of September 13, 2010
  3. ↑ Lambiek: Willy Vandersteen
  4. ↑ Ulrich Wick, in: Bastei Freunde 32, Niederkrüchten 2011
  5. ↑ bdoubliees: Bob et Bobette dans le journal Tintin édition belge
  6. ↑ Catawiki: Blauwe reeks
  7. ↑ Catawiki: Rode reeks Vlaams
  8. ↑ Catawiki: De Familie Snoek 1-11
  9. ↑ Catawiki: De Familie Snoek 1-7
  10. ↑ Comic Guide: Karl May
  11. ↑ Comic Guide: The Red Knight
  12. ↑ Catawiki: Safari
  13. ↑ See the album list on stripinfo.be
  14. ↑ Comic Guide: Thyl Ulenspiegel's Adventure
  15. ↑ See the album list on stripinfo.be
  16. ↑ Catawiki: Uit de archieven van Willy Vandersteen

Web links

Commons : Willy Vandersteen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Vandersteen, Willy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vandersteen, Willebrord Jan Frans Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian comic book writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Antwerp
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1990