gerben valkema

http://www.gerbenvalkema.nl/ Gerben Valkema is one of the most prominent contemporary Dutch comic artists. As one of the original members of Studio Jan Kruis, he spent the first eight years of his career producing comic pages and related artwork for the family comic 'Jan, Jans en de Kinderen' (1999-2007) for the women's weekly Libelle. Together with the studio's writer Eric Hercules he then developed his newspaper comic about a precocious little girl called Elsje (Lizzy, in English). Launched in 2007, Elsje quickly turned into one of the most recognizable Dutch comic characters created in the 21st century, appearing in about 15 regional newspapers, comic magazine Eppo and publications abroad. Around the same time, Valkema began working for the educational publishing house Zwijsen and their children's magazines for beginning readers, first creating 'Tommie' for Roetsj and then the long-running funny animal comic 'Kik' for Maan Roos Vis. Inspired by both Franco-Belgian comics and American newspaper strips, Valkema can adapt to several drawing styles. He has drawn Disney characters for the Dutch Donald Duck weekly (since 2005), Marten Toonder's iconic creations in 'Heer Bommel en de i-padden' (2012) and Willy Vandersteen's 'Suske en Wiske' for the stand-alone episode 'Cromimi' (2017).