Marten Toonder
Dutch comic creator who shaped language and satire.
via Wikipedia: Marten Toonder · see source
Marten Toonder was a Dutch comic strip creator, probably the most successful comic artist in the Netherlands. He introduced new words and expressions into the Dutch language, and is most famous for his series Tom Puss and Panda. His work had a great influence on Dutch culture and language.
Quick Facts
- Born
- 2 May 1912
- Birthplace
- Rotterdam, Netherlands
- Died
- 27 July 2005
- Place of death
- Laren, North Holland, Netherlands
- Occupation
- Writer
- Genre
- Graphic novels
- Spouse
- Phiny Dick
Facts from the source article.
Life
Marten Toonder was born in Rotterdam on 2 May 1912. From 1965 until the early 1990s, he lived in Ireland. He was married to cartoon artist Phiny Dick (1912–1990), who collaborated with him and whose earlier created characters Ollie B Bumble and Tom Puss were the basis for their work. In 1996, at age 84, he married composer Tera de Marez Oyens, who died the same year. Together with his brother, author Jan Gerhard Toonder, he assisted his father, Marten Toonder Sr., a seaman born in the Dutch northern province Groningen, to write a book about his life, describing details about the closing era of professional cargo sailing, the Rotterdam Lloyd, the Holland America Line, and pre-war Rotterdam. Marten Toonder died in his sleep on 27 July 2005, aged 93, in Laren, North Holland.
Tom Puss/Oliver B. Bumble series
In 1931, after his final exams, Marten Toonder went to Buenos Aires with his father. There he got acquainted with the work of Argentine artist and editor Dante Quinterno, who ran a studio producing comics. Quinterno's creations impressed him so much that he decided to become an artist himself. His most famous comic series were the Tom Puss (Tom Poes in Dutch) and Oliver B. Bumble (Olivier B. Bommel in Dutch) series, which appeared in a Dutch newspaper from 1941–86. Every day there were three drawings and an accompanying text about a book-page long. It started as a children's cartoon but gradually became more relevant to adults. Some critics now consider his texts literature, and Toonder received several literary prizes for them. He invented many new words and expressions, some now widely used in Dutch. Many personalities have their own peculiar dialect, for instance professor Prlwytzkofsky's innovative mixture of Dutch and German. Due to this language play, Toonder's work is difficult to translate. His drawing style is very detailed, with more room for backgrounds since there are no text balloons. He is also praised for his satirical approach, with stories leading to comparisons with a fabulist.
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