Suske & Wiske 317: 'Het Bizarre Blok'.

Some more news from the European comic scene. Belgian Publisher Standaard will be releasing volume 317 'Het bizarre blok ('The strange block') in their succefull comic series 'Suske & Wiske' ('Spike & Suzy') on May 9th. Creators Luc Morjeau (artwork) and Peter van Gucht with their colleagues at Studio Vandersteen have again created another spectacle for the series, created by Willy Vandersteen in 1945.

This time our friends will have to deal with evil itself, as their friend Lambik (I think he's called 'Ambrose' in English) has made a deal with the devil to become a famous architect. Spike and Suzy get lost in a strange building he recently had build, with plenty of rooms filled with riddles and mysteries linking to previous adventures from the past. Prepublication of this story started on April 11th in the Belgian newspaper 'De Standaard'.

Below left: A cover sketch for the new book, showing a variation on the artwork that made the final cut. Middle: The French cover. In France the series is called 'Bob et Bobette', the new volume is called 'le bloc bizarre'. Right: Publisher Standaard has announced they will continue to publish a Summer Holiday Special this year, filled with games and puzzles and of course, four stories of Spike and Suzy. This year's volume will hold 'De Gevederde Slang' ('The Feathered Serpent') from 1996, 'De Koning Drinkt' ('The King Drinks') from 1949, 'De Schone Slaper'('The Sleeping Beauty') from 1965 and 'De Dartele Draak' ('The Playful Dragon') from 2008. 'The King Drinks' was published in the US in 1976, while the characters were still called 'Willy & Wanda' in English.

Three more books have been announced for 2012. Spike and Suzy's next adventure seems something from the pages of Roald Dahl's 1964 classic 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. Studio Vandersteen has already revealed the cover for volume 318, titled 'De Suikerslaven' (The Sugarslaves'). Prepublication hasn't begun yet, but the comic book will be published on August 8th. In this sory, Spike and Suzy are magically transformed into candy by a robot and kidnapped to Suchardia, where they are forced to work in a candy factory. But this fairytale is all but sweet as the country is terrorised by a magician and a huge monster. The titles for volumes 319 and 320 have also been announced already: 'Suske de Rat' ('Spike the Rat') and 'De Tirannieke Tor' ('The Tyrannical Beetle').

Below: Cover artwork for volume 318 and some character sketches by Morjeau. (thanks to Studio Vandersteen and Luc Morjeau). Visit Luc Morjeau's site for more on 'De Suikerslaven'!

The Red Knight.

Vandersteen's other succesfull comic book series, which he started in 1959 with Karel Biddeloo will also have another volume published by Standaard. 'De Rode Ridder' (The Red Knight') volume 234 will be out on June 9th titled 'De Elfenring' ('The Fairy Ring'). Artwork and story are, of course, again by German artist Claus Scholtz, so it looks like knight Johan van Horst is in for a great adventure again.

By the way, did you know that Castle of Horst really exists? It is situated in Sint-Pieters-Rode in Belgium. During a battle with the armies of Maximilian I of Austria in 1488, the castle was completely ravaged. It was rebuild afterwards by Lodewijk III Pynnock which financially ruined him, forcing him to sell it to his uncle, Ivan van Cortenbach in 1500. As of 2007 the estate is owned by the Flemish Region and plays host to historical reenactments, including medieval tournements between knights during the yearly festivities. Read all about the renovations taking place today on the official site or check the official Pynnock knights of Horst site (Dutch only).

Below left:: Cover for the new 'Red Knight' volume 234 by Claus. Right you can see the actual 'Castle of Horst' (click to enlarge).

More Vandersteen Archives from Adhemar.

A while back I reported that indie publisher Adhemar had announced they would release the first five volumes of the 'Willy Vandersteen Archives', collecting the first stories Belgian comic book legend Vandersteen (1913-1990) created, before he started his famous studio and turned out hundreds of thousands of fantastic comic books and series, most popular of them all of course, being 'Suske & Wiske' (Spike & Suzy'). As of the February 24, these first volumes indeed reached the stores. Because it the collection is a series of limited editions, only 1000 were printed for each title.

Yesterday Adhemar announced the next five volumes and showed the (beautiful) covers for them. The first five books contained the stories 'Knight Gloriant', 'The Red Mask', 'March of the Batavi', 'The Black leopard', and 'The Blue Lobster', published between 1945 and 1947 in 'Ons Volkske', the comics supplement to the Belgian magazine 'Ons Volk'. The books also contain additional gags of other early works of Vandersteen from 1941/1942, such as 'Kitty Inno', 'Thor', 'Pudifar' and 'Barabitje', which are amazingly rare today.

Volume 6 to 10 of the 'Vandersteen Archives' will again hold five early masterpieces, making you wonder why Vandersteen ever left this course of grittier and more hardcore fiction stories, emulating early American fiction authors Alex Raymond and Hal Foster, like his Belgian collegue Edgar P. Jacobs (1904-1987) had done before him, drawing 'The U Ray' for Europe's first comic magazine 'Bravo' (Vandersteen by the way, also drew a comic for this magazine called 'Lancelot').



Above: Willy Vandersteen (left) and Edgar Jacobs (right). The next stories to be published in this collection will be 'Mars Commandos on Earth', 'Phantom of the Peat Bog', 'The sunken Kingdom', 'Between Fire and Water' and 'The First Moon Rocket' (the English titles are in no means official and are translated by me, the comic stories are of course published in their original Dutch language).

Above: Hal Foster's Valiant from 1938 (left) influenced Vandersteen clearly while he was working on 'The Red Mask' (right), which is volume two in the series. Check out the great covers for volumes eight and nine below (I put the covers for volume six and seven at top of this article).

'Ons Volk' Magazine was first published in 1911 in Antwerp. In 1914 the creators also founded what would become Belgium's major newspaper publisher 'De Standaard'. The first World War brought an end to all publications, but the magazine returned in 1919, until circulation again came to a halt during WWII. Although 'De Standaard' ceased publication of it's major newspaper at that time, other publications, overseen by the Nazis, continued during WWII. After the war, the publisher was accused of collaboration, causing a two year ban on all their activities. However, circulation of the magazine and newspaper (including 'ons Volkske') recommenced after a new publishing company was founded, named 'De Gids'.

Above (Click to enlarge): the first two pages of Vandersteen's 'Mars Commando's op Aarde' ('Mars Commandos on Earth') created and published from July 14, 1946 to January 12, 1947. 'Knight Gloriant' (vol.1) was created and published between the end of 1945 and March 14, 1946, followed by 'Red Mask' (vol.2) which was published from March 21, 1946 to August 1 that same year.

'March of the Batavi' (vol.3) was published from August 8 to December 19, 1946, followed by 'The Black leopard' (vol.4) , published between December 26 1946 and June 19, 1947.

In 1947 'De Standaard' reclaimed it's properties and started publishing again. 'De Gids' also continued to do so and, although they had to rename their magazines and newspaper, started a rivaling competition between the two companies. Their magazine was called 'Overal!' and their comic supplement was renamed 'Kapoentje', while Standaard continued with 'Ons Volkske'. For a while Vandersteen's work appeared in both magazines. 'The Blue Lobster' (vol. 5) was published in 'Kapoentje' between June 26 and November 20, 1947.  From then on, Vandersteen would work exclusively for 'De Standaard' again.

Below (Click to enlarge): the first two pages of Vandersteen's 'Het Veenspook' ('Phantom of the Peat Bog') created and published from January 19 to June 29, 1947. His next story, 'The Sunken Kingdom' was his last work for publisher 'De Gids', published between Juli 6 and November 9, 1947. (Note that the artwork above and below are taken from the 'Ciso collection' editions, published in September 1975 and January 1976 and are not representative of Adhemar's new Hardcover reprints).














Beside Vandersteen, a lot of famous Belgian comic authors started their career working for the magazine. Authors such as Marc Sleen, Jef Nys and Bob de Moor, who would later become Hergé' s right hand man, working on 'Tintin'. Volume six to ten of the 'Vandersteen Archives' are expected to appear in August, costing € 25,00 Euro's each. Below: cover for volume ten: 'De Eerste Maan raket' ('The First Moon Rocket'). For more on Adhemar, go here.

Krimsonia.

Studio Vandersteen has published the cover for their new Suske & Wiske ('Spike & Suzy') comic book issue 316 titled 'Krimsonia'. The book will be released February 15.

Suske & Wiske 315.

Following up on my last post here in which I showed you the cover and some artwork of the new 'Suske & Wiske' comic book, to be released on September 21 this year (volume 314: 'Het Lijdende Leiden') the team at Vandersteen Studio has released the cover artwork for the next volume 315, which will be published on November 9th and is called 'De Bananenzangers' (which more or less translates as 'The Bananasingers'....okay that's just weird!)

The plot involves an expedition through the African jungle and a search for a special tree that grows blue Bananas, needed to sing a magical chant that will cure the African king from a neverending hiccup! The story hasn't been published in the Belgium newspapers yet, as they're still running the previous story about the city of Leiden.

Check the cover for 315 beneath, along with a small report by Stefan Tetelepta of  'Het Leidsch Dagblad' (The Leidsch Newspaper) featuring Thijs Hemmes of the 'October 3rd organisation' on their cooperation with the Vandersteen studio and the origination of volume 314: 'Het Leidende Lijden' (video is in Dutch only, sorry!)

Adhemar releases new 'Bessy' titles.

Following up on my last post, I got an email this week from Peter Janda. He runs 'Adhemar', the Belgium comic shop in Gent, which also runs a small press publishing house, releasing extremely exclusive titles and niche objects. He sent me a couple of pictures, showing five new titles from their limited  re-release of the 'Bessy' series, originally created by the Vandersteen Studio in the 1970's.

Back then the series was in such a high demand, they succeeded in delivering one new title every week. At the same time, only one title was published every three months in The Netherlands and in Belgium, so there's still a huge amount of stories that have never been released here.

Adhemar released 25 titles in the 'Bessy' series until now, the five that are up for order now (26-30) are in limited supply (1250 issues each) and numbered: (If you're interested, contact Adhemar.)

·    'Het Zoete Kruid' ('The Sweet 'Herb')
·    'De Verdwenen Pelswerksters' ('The missing fur workers')
·    'De Bedreigde Karavaan' ('The threatened Caravan')
·    'De Gebroken Lans' ('Broken Spear')
·    'De Uitwisseling' ('The Exchange')

The Vandersteen Archives

Peter also shared some light on their upcoming release of a new 'classics' series, called the 'Willy Vandersteen Archives', of which the first titles are scheduled for September/October this year. This series will hold all the stories Willy Vandersteen created before he ran the studio, so all titles are done by the master himself, story and artwork! The stories were published in the 1940's in several magazines, the new hard cover books will have the original colors from back then. Check out an exclusive preview of the first two covers beneath. The first five titles will be:

·      'Het Rode Masker' ('The Red Mask')
·     'Het Zwarte Luipaard' ('The Black Leopard')
·     'De Blauwe Kreeft' ('The Blue Lobster')
·     'Ridder Gloriant' ('Knight Gloriant')
·     'De Heldentocht der Bataven' ('March of the Batavi') 

Peter Janda is an expert in the field of comic books and vice president of the 'Chambre Belge des Experts en Bandes Dessinées' (The official Belgium 'Chambre of Experts' on comic books) and is related to the  'Belgium Comicbook centre', the museum in Brussels.

Suske & Wiske 314: studio leaks cover art.

While the official release date for the upcoming volume in the popular Belgium comic series ‘Suske & Wiske’ (called ‘De Kwakende Queen’, no. 313) has been set for June 22 by publisher Standaard, the authors, Studio Vandersteen,  have already leaked some of the artwork for their next album, ‘Het Lijdende Leiden’ (314), which is currently published in Belgium newspaper ‘De Standaard’ (starting May 13).

‘Het Lijdende Leiden’ has the main characters transported through time to the city of Leiden in 1574. While they’ve lost all recollection of who they are, they assume new identities and get caught in a war between the Spanish conquistadors and the Dutch resistance, torn between aiding the city’s defends and supporting the attacking Spanish legion, just like it happened back then for real. The story concentrates on the history of Magdalena Moons (1541-1613), daughter of prominent figure judge Pieter Moons, who was part of the Dutch resistance, and commander of the Spanish army Francisco Valdez. While the town was starving and Valdez attacked the city, Moons offered to marry Valdez if he would stop, buying time for reinforcements to arrive and break the siege. Left below: Magdalena and Alvarez as depicted by Dutch painter Simon Opzoomer (1819-1878), National Museum Amsterdam (click to enlarge).

Leiden is one of the oldest Dutch cities and is known for it’s prominent University throughout history. Founded in 1575, it is the place where John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the USA studied, as well as famous philosopher Descartes and Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who discovered Saturn´s moon Titan in 1655. Albert Einstein was professor of theoretical physics there.

It’s amazing to see that after hundreds of great stories, the creative team at Studio Vandersteen still seems to find inspiration for new adventure, finding inspiration in local history only makes for a more interesting read, and promises some nice jokes (and they deserve it! The Spanish not only invaded our country back then, they also stole the World Championship football last year right from under our feet in the final match, Grr!)

Willy Vandersteen (photo below), creator of the popular Belgian comic, created his first Suske & Wiske comic in 1945.It is published in the US as 'Willy and Wanda' and was known in England as 'Bob and Bobette', (same as in France). Today, it's no known in the UK as 'Spike and Suzy'. Paul Geerts joined the studio in 1968 and continued his work under his supervision.

When Vandersteen passed away in 1990, he left the comic to his employees. After Geerts, his assistant Marc Verhaegen continued the work in april 2002. He had worked with the studio since 1988 and created 32 comic books until February 2005, when the studio thought his stories became too dark (Verhaegen had written a story about Auschwitz) and he was let go immediately. Today, the main artwork is created by Luc Morjeau with scripts by Peter van Gucht and help from other talented artists like Dirk Stallaert (also artwork), Isabelle van Laerhoven and Sabine de Meyer (coloring), Peter Quirijnen (backgrounds) and Eric de Rop (inks).

Beside ‘Suske & Wiske’, Vandersteen created several other successful comic series.‘De Rode Ridder’ (‘The Red Knight’) is a comic set in medieval times. 229 Issues have been published since 1959 (issue 230 entitled ‘De Amazones’ will be on sale June 22).

Vandersteen created 'De Rode Ridder' based on the books by Leopold Vermeiren with artist Karel Biddeloo (who continued the series on his own from issue 44). After he passed away June 2004, Claus Scholtz took over, who had been working for the Vandersteen studio since the mid-eighties on 'Bessy' and 'Karl May'. Scripts for the series are since written by Dutch comic author Martin Lodewijk. Vandersteen's other series 'Bessy', a western featuring a Collie dog (made with Karel Verschuere), had 992 titles published in Germany. In all, he had over 25 series, selling more than 200 millon copies world wide! Recently Suske & Wiske have also become available in digital form, so you can read it on your Ipad 2!

Above left: Rode Ridder 230 will be released in June. Right: Belgium Comicshop and small press publisher Adhemar recently released an exclusive limited and numbered series of 25 new Bessy titles.

'Het Lijdende Leiden' will be for sale in September this year, a special collectors edition will be available in cooperation with the 'October 3rd organization', a special organization founded in 1886 celebrating the end of 'the Siege of Leiden' which happened on October 3, 1574. (during the Eighty Years' War 1568-1648). The organization currently has 14.000 members and celebrates it's 125th anniversary this year.

Check below for some more original artwork (pages six and twelve) from the forthcoming 'Het Lijdende Leiden' (thanks to Studio Vandersteen).