Dutch comics

Dutch comics are comics made in the Netherlands. In Dutch the most common designation for the whole art form is "strip" (short for "stripverhaal" – "strip story" – , though the old-fashioned expression "beeldverhaal" – "picture story" – remains utilized on occasion, particularly in formal texts and treatises on the subject matter), whereas the word "comic" is used for the (usually) soft cover American style comic book format and its derivatives, typically containing translated US superhero material. This use in colloquial Dutch of the adopted English word for that format can cause confusion in English language texts.

Since the Netherlands shares the same language with Flanders, many Belgian comics and Franco-Belgian comics have also been published there, the latter in translation. But while French language publications are habitually translated into Dutch/Flemish, the opposite is not true: Dutch/Flemish publications are less commonly translated into French, possibly due to the different cultures in Flanders/Netherlands and Wallonia/France. Likewise and though available, Flemish comic books are not doing that well in the Netherlands and vice versa, save for some notable exceptions, especially the Willy Vandersteen creation Suske en Wiske (Spike and Suzy) which is as popular in the Netherlands as it is in native Flanders. Concurrently, the cultural idiosyncrasies contained within Dutch/Flemish comics also mean that these comics have seen far fewer translations into other languages – excepting French to some extent, due to the bi-lingual nature of Belgium – than their French-language counterparts have.

History

Earliest examples

Dutch comics, like many European comics, have their prototypical forerunners in the form of medieval manuscripts, which often used sequential pictures accompanied by text, or sometimes even used speech balloons for captions. The "mannekesprenten" ("little men drawings") are also an early forerunner, usually depicting the lives of Christian saints or fables. In the 19th century several Dutch political cartoonists made use of sequential pictures, caricatures and humoristic situations that can be seen as the predecessors of comics.