Monkey business

One of my colleagues got an assignment for a comic this week. 

Though well, assignment... There was a tight budget so she was 

asked to work for free!

Somehow it didn't occur to them to ask the printer or designer to 

work for free. After all, those are REAL jobs and drawing is just 

a fun hobby, right?! :-/

So here's an answer you can tell your 'clients' 

when they ask for freebies!

And hopefully then one day:

(feel free to share these pics! :-) )

And while I'm on this subject;

I made a Facebook page for my new book-in-process 

'Tekeningen Rekeningen'.

https://www.facebook.com/TekeningenRekeningen

I'll use this page to share new comic pages and would 

love to get your comments, ideas and advice as well!

Come visit and 'like'!  

(but sorry, for the moment it's only in Dutch)

Criticism

Last week I've been drawing new comics for my illustration business book 'Tekeningen, Rekeningen'.

Here are two pages about something that's also a part of being a professional illustrator; dealing with

criticism! (sorry, only in Dutch)

The red figure has bunny ears because he is 'Beunhaas' (= a character who is very unprofessional).

Let's draw business...

Meanwhile I devoted all my spare time to an important project;

A book about the illustration business! Of course there are already a zillion books about

this subject, but the problem is that too many illustrators don't bother to read them

(because well, they tend to be pretty boring...).

So that's where I hope to make a change, because I will not write boring stories on how

to do business... I will DRAW them!

Above a fast sketch. At the moment I'm still gathering information and tips.

But here's a sample of a finished page (not final though) that I'd like to share with you:

The book is aimed at starting and wannebe illustrators but I hope professional illustrators will

pick up a few tips as well. This might take a while to finish, but I hope to show you some more 

pages every now and then. 

Oh, and the title will probably be 'Tekeningen, Rekeningen' (drawings, bills').

Book in progress

What the 'manustript' looks like on the inside; Sketches for stories and copies of drawings that I
made while traveling. I'm going to put all my traveldiaries together and make my ultimate book
about Japan. I want to explain all the crazy things I see there, and also why Japan fascinates me
that much.
I don't know yet when this book will be published. First I'm going back to Japan to get some more
documentation and draw some more, then I to put everything together and THEN my publisher
needs to announce it and publish it (which can take up to half a year). Oh, and I want to make an
eBook version of it as well! (I want too much)

What the mailman brought in...

This is what came into the mail today:

Two prints from the illustrations of the big commercial assignment that I've
been working on the past two weeks (yeah, finally finished!), a magazine with
a 3,5 page interview with me, and.....

...MY NEW BOOK!
It will be for sale in bookstores soon, and is the last collection of the comics
I drew for women's magazine Viva and the newspaper NRC.next.
I'm so happy with the cover, it turned out exactly like I wanted! :-D

There was also a stack of postcards that my publisher had printed as promotion.
On the back you can fill in what kind of 'horrible' things you wish the recipient.
('Gruwelijk!' means 'horrible!' in English , but it's also slang for 'fantastic'.)

The last books

So you think you own all my comicbooks?! Think again!

I've gone through my archives and collected the last copies of my old comicbooks, and I'll
be selling them at the Kunststripbeurs (comicartfair) THIS Saturday. So come and get the very
last copies of these old and rare comicbooks. Most were self published, limited editions and
have been sold out for years!
I'll also be selling new books, t-shirts and hand decorated plates. Click here to read more.

And then there's another book I worked on, that you do not own...

... because it's not released yet! This is 'Mooi is dat!', the anthology with 1 page comics based on
famous Dutch literature. I also made a page, and the book will be presented at the fair as well!
So come and get a copy in Utrecht this Saturday (the book is presented at 14:00) and have it signed
by me and many other participating comicartists.
Check this out, it was even on national news!
And a week later you can visit the special exhibition about the book at the OBA, the public library in
Amsterdam, where I'll show my sketches and the 3D original of my 'comic'.

No ants

So I was asked to design the cover of a funny book about a woman who reincarnates as an ant
and has to climb up the animal-reincarnation ladder to get back to her family. She gets help
from a reincarnated cat and meets Buddha as a guinea pig.
But today I heard that the publisher decided not to continue working with me... :-(
Apparently the ideas that each of us has about the style of the cover are too far apart.

It's a shame because I started this project with a lot of enthousiasm and made many sketches
in different styles.

These 'sketches' were my personal favorites. Very different but I like them both.
It's sad that they'll never be used.

Oh well, there's always karma. ;-)

Six ants

I'm currently working on the cover of the Dutch edition of 'Mieses Karma', a book by
the German writer David Safier. It's a funny story about a careerwoman who dies and
reincarnates as an ant. By accumilating good karma she tries to reincarnate as a human
being to protect her family.

This is a photo of one of the 'sketches', but the final cover will probably not look
anything like this, since I made SIX design sketches and they're all different!

Booksigning Friday afternoon!

Another booksigning this Friday!

Ben Westervoorde and I will be signing our new books at famous comicstore Lambiek.
This will be a very special signing, since Ben and I worked together on BOTH books!

'SigloXXV' is a funny children's comic about a boy's adventures on a space station.
It has been published in National Geographic Junior. Ben made the drawings and I wrote
most of the stories!

'Donker' is my latest comicdiary about South Africa. Here I also spent some time with Ben
and his family, who own a house near Durban. Ben and his wife Lynette taught me many
things about South Africa and play a big role in my book.

So come visit us at Lambiek this Friday afternoon and you can get BOTH of us to sign them!

Pixel books

I turned the covers of old books into pixel images.

(big size:)

Go Home

Today 'Go Home' got home with me. It's a book I worked on with 11 other comic artists, all from different countries in Europe and Asia.
For this project, initiated by ASEF (Asia-Europe Foundation) we all spent two interesting, hard working, wonderful weeks in Singapore.

The package travelled by surface and I was shocked to see what the postal services put it through. I've never received
a book in such a horrible state.
But the book itself is wonderful, all comics are so different but also so good. It's great to finally see the result of all our
work in Singapore. I hope to distribute the book through my publisher in Holland and also publish my personal comic-
dairy about those two weeks in Singapore.
More information about the book and the project can be found here.


Here are some samples of my own pages (from my poor crushed copy).
My comic is without words (the rest of the book is in english) and tells the story about a bird who travels
from tree to tree looking for a place he feels at home.
It was my personal story of my travels to Asia, where I flew from Amsterdam to Hong Kong to Tokyo, until
I found myself in Singapore with all these people from different countries and cultures. And there I felt at
home because, despite our differences, we were all comicartists and created our own culture together.

New book

Today my publisher brought me my new comicbook. :)