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Willy Vandersteen
Nationality
Belgian
Area(s)artist, writer
Pseudonym(s)Wil, Wirel
Notable works
Suske en Wiske
De Rode Ridder
Robert en Bertrand
Awardsfull list

Willy Vandersteen (February 15, 1913 - August 28, 1990) was a Flemish creator of comic books. His most famous creation is the Spike and Suzy series, known as Suske en Wiske in Dutch.

Biography

1913-1939

Willy Vandersteen was born in Antwerp in 1913.[1] His family lived in the Seefhoek, a poor quarter of the city, where his father Francis Vandersteen worked as a decorator and stone sculptor. His studio lay next to a printer which made De Kindervriend, one of the first weekly youth magazines in Flanders. Willy Vandersteen, only four years old, read the new magazine there every week, including Blutske, an early comic strip. His mother Anna Gerard was more interested in ballet and singing. One of her favourites, Wiske Ghijs, may well have been the inspiration for the name "Wiske" he gave to one of the main characters in his main series "Spike and Suzy". [2]


Vandersteen was creatively active from his youth on. He would draw pictures with crayons on the sidewalks, and told his friends endless stories he invented about knights and legends. He even convinced his young friends to buy him crayons so he could depict the local cycling championship. At school as well, he was more interested in telling stories and learning about art than anything else. His best memory of these schooldays is of one teacher who introduced him to the works of Pieter Brueghel. Outside school, he spent most of his time with his comic magazines and adventure books by [Jules Verne]] or about Nick Carter and Buffalo Bill. Aged 13, he enrolled at the Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp to study sculpture, and two years later he started working as sculptor and decorator, just like his father.[3]

The same year, the family moved to Deurne, a suburb of Antwerp, where he came in contact with nature and with scouting, which both had a profound impact on his character and his later work. With the scouts, he became the troop reporter, writing down heavily illustrated reports on their outings and adventures, in a similar vein as what Hergé did in his Scouting period. Through the scouts, he also came into contact with Le Boy-Scout Belge, the Walloon scouting magazine where Hergé made Totor, his first published comic. Vandersteen made a few sequels to these adventures for his friends as amusement, which are the earliest preserved comics he made. He would continue to follow the work of Hergé later on. Meanwhile, Vandersteen combined his studies at the Academy with his work in his father's workshop until 1935, when the market for stone decorations for houses collapsed. [4]

Inbetween some odd jobs, Vandersteen became an avid sporter, from gymnastics over cycling to wrestling. His chances improved in 1936 when he was hired as a decorator for the shop and the display windows of L'Innovation, a Belgian chain of supermarkets. In the same year, he meets Paula Van Den Branden, whom he would marry on October 9, 1937. After living in Antwerp for two years and having a daughter Helena in 1938, the couple moved to the more rural Schilde in 1939.[5]

While doing research for his decorations, he read in an American magazine the article Comics in your Life. Fascinated, Vandersteen searched for more information on the subject. He rediscovered Hergé with The Advnetures of Tintin in Le Petit Vingtième, but also the realistic work of Hal Foster in Prince Valiant. But it would take a few more years before this fascination was translated in a steady publication of his own comics. Meanwhile, his first published drawings appeared in Entre Nous, the internal magazine of L'Innovation.[6]

1940-1944

In March 1940, two months before the start of World War II in Belgium, Bob, his second child, was born. When the first tribulations of the war are over, Vandersteen can restart his work at L'Innovation. From November 1940 until August 1942, he creates his first published comic, Kitty Inno, for the company. It consists of short, simple gags. When the German occupier forbids the publication of American and British comics in the Belgian newspapers and magazines, opportunies arise for local people. On March 19 1941, the first comic strip of Tor de holbewoner (Tor the troglodyte) appears in the newspaper De Dag. It would continue until January 1942. Already on March 26 1941 it was joined by De lollige avonturen van Pudifar (The funny adventures of Pudifar), a weekly comic strip about a cat. This was in May of the same year replaced by Barabitje, another comic about a cat, which ended in October 1941.[7]

In 1942, Vandersteen quit his job at L'Innovation and started working at the Landbouw- en Voedingscorporatie (a Government organisation for the agricultural sector), where he illustrated some magazines. In those years, the family Vandersteen moved yet again, this time to Wilrijk, another suburb of Antwerp.[8]

At the Corporatie, Vandersteen met a colleague whose wife worked at Bravo, a weekly Flemish comics magazine which appeared since 1936 and had a French language version since 1940. Due to the war conditions, they were desperately in need of local artists to replace the American comics they used to publish. Led by established Walloon ilustrator Jean Dratz, a young team was gathered, with artists like Edgar P. Jacobs and Jacques Laudy. Vandersteen joined in 1943, and here his comics career really took off. First he created Tori, a reprise of the prehistoric Tor, and a few weeks later his new comic Simbat de Zeerover (Simbat the Sailor) was published on the cover and in colour, a first for Vandersteen.[9]

For the Antwerp publisher Ons Volk, he created three comics which were published as books without a prepublication in a newspaper or magazine. Piwo, about the adventures of a wooden horse, became his first comic album in 1943, and was followed by two more in 1944 and 1946. Those comics were also published in French. For the same editor, he illustrated 11 children books. In the same years, he also created the cover illustration for a number of novels from other publishers. In 1944, he also started working for two more magazines, De Rakker and De Illustratie, where he created some comics and made numerous illustrations. To help him with all this work, his wife Paula inked many of his pencil drawings in these years.[10]

1944-1950

After the liberation of Belgium in September 1944, there was a boom of new magazines for the youth, both in French and Dutch. Many of those tried to mix American comics with local artists. Vandersteen worked in these early years for countless publications. He continued publishing in Bravo, with the medieval gags of Lancelot. Having moved to the suburbs of Brussels to avoid the bombardments of Antwerp, he came into contact with some French language editors. French language magazines he contributed to included Franc Jeu, Perce-Neige, and Le Petit Monde. Two of the comics he created for Franc Jeu were also published in albums. By 1947, all these magazines had disappeared.[11]

Defining for his career was the invitation he got in 1944 from the people of Standaard Boekhandel, a chain of libraries who were also active as publishers. They were interested in his work and wanted to publish some books. Vandersteen presented them with the first designs for a daily comic strip, but they put that on hold and first ordered four juvenile books from Vandersteen. These were published in 1945 and 1946 in Dutch and French (by Casterman).[12]

On March 30, 1945, the daily comic strip Rikki en Wiske started to appear in the newspaper De Nieuwe Standaard, after a positive review by the young illustrator Marc Sleen. It was an immediate success, and the first story ran uninterrupted until December 15, 1945.[13] Vandersteen though was disappointed to see the editor had renamed the strip Rikki en Wiske instead of his suggestion Suske en Wiske.[14]

The next story, Rikki disappeared, and the long series of adventures of Suske en Wiske began with the story Op het eiland Amoras, achieving success beyond the author's expectations. The first album appeared in 1946.[15] This story introduced most of the recurring figures and means of transport, and set the framework for the complete series.[16]

On December 22 1945, three days after the start of Suske en Wiske op het eiland Amoras, appeared the first page of De Familie Snoek (The Family Snoek), a weekly series of gags revolving around a contemporary Flemish family. It would last for 11 albums.[17]

Apart from these two long lasting newspaper comic strips, Vandersteen made a number of other comics in these years. Most important was his work for Ons Volkske, the youth supplement of the weekly magazine Ons Volk which from the end of 1945 on became an independent comics magazine. Marc Sleen was editor-in-chief and filled most pages together with Vandersteen. Vandersteen created a number of realistic stories of about 20 pages each, where he developed his own style after starting very much as a follower of Harold Foster. In his usual more caricatural style, he created in August 1946 the recurring gagstrip De Vrolijke Bengels (The Happy Rascals). More adult comics appeared in the magazine Ons Volk.[18]

In 1947, two publishers started a legal battle for the right to the names of the newspapers and magazines. Vandersteen, caught in the middle, worked a while for both, but eventually switched to the new owners of De Standaard. He continued to work for Ons Volkske, which was now renamed 't Kapoentje for a few more months. The publishers of De Standaard also continued the album series of Suske en Wiske, which started modestly with one album in 1946 and one in 1947. By 1947, seven albums were available, and the first ones were already reprinted. The first albums of De Familie Snoek had also appeared by then. Supported by large publicity campaigns, they sold very well: the first Snoek album was in its third impression by 1948.[19]

Vandersteen worked the rest of his life for De Standaard, but contributed also to the other publications of the publisher: Ons Volkske, a new newspaper supplement continuing the name of the older magazine, and Het Nieuwsbald, the more popular newspaper of the group. Vandersteen made illustrations and comics when needed. For Ons Volk, which also reappeared, he made realistic stories until 1951.[20]

Vandersteen was now at the height of his productivity as a solo artist. Apart from his work for De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad, he contributed to Ons Volk and Ons Volkske, he made a special Suske en Wiske story for het Parochieblad (a weekly Christian newspaper), and he started to collaborate with Kuifje, the magazine which published the works of Hergé. The magazine was very popular in Wallonia, but struggled in Flanders, where The Adventures of Tintin were not yet as well known. A popular Flemish author would give the sales a boost, while it could mean the breakthrough on the French language market for Vandersteen. However, Hergé, as editor-in-chief, set a very high quality standard for his magazine, and Vandersteen had to improve and stylize his drawings, and had to remove the more Flemish, popular aspects of his comics. Vandersteen obliged, and the stories of Suske en Wiske he created for Kuifje are now considered as the best of his career, with the first one, Het Spaanse Spook (The Spanish Ghost), which started on September 16 1948, as his masterpiece.[21]

Willy Vandersteen, between his characters Suske and Wiske, in Hasselt, Belgium

1950-1959

Vandersteen could no longer handle the amount of work on his own, and in 1949 he hired his first collaborator, François-Joseph Herman. he would only stay with Vandersteen for three years before fading into obscurity, but it was the start of the large Studio Vandersteen that would continue his series until now.[22] He was followed by Karel Boumans in 1952, who would stay as an anonymous contributor until 1959. He worked mainly for De grappen van Lambik, a Suske en Wiske spin-off Vandersteen created for the weekly newspaper De Bond and which ran from January 24 1954 on. But he also inked many Suske en Wiske comics, including those which appeared in Tintin.Vandersteen devoted himself more and more towards the storytelling and the initial pencil drawing, which he considered the artistic proces, while the inking was more of a craft.[23]

Those years, from 1949 until 1953, are often considered as the highlight of Vandersteen's career, when he combined a large production with a constant high quality, both in his stories, the jokes and the many characters, as in the graphical aspects, where the charming quirkyness of the early years was balanced with the more rigourous Ligne claire of Hergé. Many of these stories were loosely based on popular classics, ranging from Alexandre Dumas over Buffalo Bill to Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, with as culmination his comic in two parts of the legend of Till Eulenspiegel, made for Kuifje.[24]

Vandersteen spent a lot more time at documentation from this point on. While the early comics were mostly filled by his imagination and visited imaginary countries or stayed close to home, he now started travelling to visit locations for new comics. Visits to Bruges, Monaco and [Venice]] were the inspiration for three stories in 'Kuifje[25]

In 1953, when Tijl Uilenspiegel was finished, Vandersteen created a new comical strip for Kuifje. 't Prinske told the humorous adventures of a young prince in a fictional country. It lasted until 1959 and ran for some 300 comics.[26]

In the same years started the merchandising around Suske en Wiske. Vandersteen, always a businessman as well as an artist, was enthusiastic when he got the proposal to make a puppet show of the series. Already in 1947, the first puppets were for sale. They were followed by a series of 5 puppets in 1957 and a Jerom-game in 1960. In 1955, two years after the start of television in Flanders, an adventure of Suske en Wiske was broadcast every Saturday afternoon.[27]

In 1951, Vandersteen encountered Karel Verschuere, a young unemployed artist. Vandersteen hired him, and Verschuere soon became his mayor artist for the realistic series. His first series was Judi, a retelling of the Old Testament in four albums, which first appeared in Ons Volkske. The series was not very successful, and Verschuere would later finish a fifth part on his own. Verschuere would also contribute to the second part of Tijl Uilenspiegel, just like Bob de Moor and Tibet did, but his main contribution to the output of Vandersteen was his work on Bessy, a Western series inspired by the success of Lassie, which started in 1952 in the Walloon newspaper La Libre Belgique. The series appeared under the pseudonym WiRel, a combination of Willy and Karel, indicating the importance of Verschueren's work. He would continue working with Vandersteen until 1967, helping with many of the realistic series Vandersteen created in these years, including Karl May, Biggles and especially De Rode Ridder.[28]

The success of Bessy, which from 1953 on also appeared in Dutch, led to the creation of the Studio Vandersteen, acknowledging, albeit mostly anonymously, that many of the comics were no longer made by Willy Vandersteen on his own. Together with the publications in Kuifje, it made Vandersteen a popular artist in Wallonia as well, and all Bessy and Suske en Wiske comics were published by Erasme in French.[29]

1960-...

Were the stories of the early 1950's were often based on classics, from 1960 on he more and more introduced elements from TV and the movies.

The Bessy comics were also published in Felix, a German comic magazine by Bastei Verlag. From 1965 on, they wanted to publish a complete new story every month., a rhythm they increased to twice a month in 1966. Unable to produce so fast, Vandersteen had to expand his Studio considerably. Led by Karel Verschuere, a team of some ten young artists mass produced the comics which were of considerable lower quality. The most important of these artists were Frank Sels and Edgar Gastmans, while many stories were produced by Daniël Janssens. When in late 1967 Verschuere quit, and at the same time Bastei increased the rhythm again, now to one complete comic a week, the Studio was disbanded and Sels and Gastmans started to work on a free lance basis. The next year, they decided to go behind Vandersteen's back and to sell directly to the Germans. Vandersteen then had to reorganize the Bessy Studio and hired Jeff Broeckx. The Studio would continue to exist until 1985, with artists like Patrick van Lierde, Ronald Van Riet, Eugeen Goossens and Walter Laureyssens, and would produce more than 900 Bessy-comics.[30]

Karel Biddeloo also started in early 1967 in the Bessy studio in Antwerp, but soon moved to the main Studio Vandersteen in Kalmthout, which was created in 1966 next to the villa of Vandersteen. Biddeloo would soon become the main creator of the De Rode Ridder series.[31]

Other work

Willy Vandersteen has always had a huge diversity of series, and besides Suske en Wiske, he also is known for De Familie Snoek (The Snoek family), De grappen van Lambik (Lambik's Jokes, a spin off from Suske en Wiske), Jerom (another spin-off), Bessy (a series about a boy in the Far West and his dog, based on Lassie), De Rode Ridder (Red Knight, a medieval, more realistic series), Karl May, Robert en Bertrand (about two tramps around 1900), and De Geuzen (about the Dutch resistance to the Spanish rulers at the end of the 16th century). In the forties and the early fifties, he made several other short-lived series, now difficult to find.

International success

Bessy and De Rode Ridder were truly successful, although both were eclipsed by the success of Suske en Wiske, which had first editions of some 400,000 copies for every new book (four to six a year) in the 1970's, in Dutch only. Suske en Wiske has been translated into most major languages and some adventures with local interest also into more exotic languages, like Tibetan. In Germany, Bessy was highly successful, with new weekly episodes. In the end, more than a thousand were made.

Willy Vandersteen was awarded the 1977 Angoulême Best foreign comics author prize.[32]

The studio

To cope with the success and the huge amount of work, Vandersteen creates a studio in 1951. Most of these series were started by Vandersteen and then continued by one or more collaborators, often under the name of Studio Vandersteen. Only after many years did he allow the name of these artists to appear on the cover or on the inside of the comics, but they still were published under his name, like a quality label (a bit like Disney). Some of the most famous collaborators are Karel Verschuere for Bessy, Karel Biddeloo for De Rode Ridder, and Paul Geerts for Suske en Wiske. Nowadays, many of these series are stopped, but the studio still exists, mainly to produce new adventures of Suske en Wiske and De Rode Ridder.

Collecting Vandersteen

His early comics are among the most highly sought after by Flemish comics collectors nowadays and can fetch prices of up to a few thousand Euros. A complete collection, including commercial items, is almost impossible, as many of his early comics only appeared in ephemera, short-lived magazines with a limited audience. Original drawings are highly sought after.

Themes and influences

Willy Vandersteen used a wild variety of themes and influences in his work from early on. He made fairytales, historic series, westerns, but also science fiction and many contemporary comics. While some series like De Familie Snoek and Bessy stuck very close to their origin (an everyday Flemish contemporary family for the former, and a pioneer family in the American Old West in the latter), others were more loose. De Rode Ridder, the story of a medieval knight, wandered from Arthurian tales over the crusades until the explorations of the fifteenth and sixteenth century, thereby spanning some ten centuries, and later (when Vandersteen was less involved in the series) brought in many elements of sword and sorcery and fantasy.

Suske and Wiske is a contemporary series, but many stories used the plot device of time travelling, either by a machine or by some poetic device. This enabled stories to evolve in a myriad of periods, often again in the Middle Ages though. Furthermore did Vandersteen use local legends of Antwerp and Limburg, parodies of American superhero series like Batman, science fiction, and popular TV series.[1] Some of the earliest realistic comics of Willy Vandersteen also clearly show the strong influence he has had from American comics like Prince Valiant and Tarzan, but he later developed his own distinctive style.

Awards

According to UNESCO's Index Translationum, Vandersteen is the second most often translated Dutch language author, after Anne Frank.[33]

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b De Weyer, Geert (2005). "Willy Vandersteen". In België gestript, pp. 169-171. Tielt: Lannoo.
  2. ^ Van Hooydonck, Peter. Biografie Willy Vandersteen. De Bruegel van het beeldverhaal (in Dutch) (2nd ed.). Antwerp: Standaard Uitgeverij. pp. 9–10. ISBN 90-02-19500-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |origmonth= ignored (help)
  3. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.11-12
  4. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.13-19
  5. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.20-21
  6. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.20-21
  7. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.23-26
  8. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.26-28
  9. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.28-30
  10. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.31-37
  11. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.38-56
  12. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.38-42
  13. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.42-46
  14. ^ Lambiek Comiclopedia. "Willy Vandersteen".
  15. ^ Stripverhalen. "Suske&Wiske" (in Dutch).
  16. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.61
  17. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.60
  18. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.67-70
  19. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.64-77
  20. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.78-91
  21. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.104-110 & p.174-181
  22. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.119
  23. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.129-131
  24. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.134-146
  25. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.152-156
  26. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.172-173
  27. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.121-126
  28. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.147-151
  29. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.182-187
  30. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.188-191
  31. ^ Van Hooydonck, Biografie, p.189
  32. ^ a b ToutEnBD. "Le palmarès" (in French).
  33. ^ Index Translationum Dutch top 10


Category:1913 births Category:1990 deaths Category:Belgian cartoonists Category:Belgian comics artists Category:Belgian comics writers

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