The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Jef Nys, the creator of Flemish comic hero Jommeke and one of the most succesful cartoonists in Flemish history, passed away earlier this week. He was born in Antwerp in 1927, and originally wanted to become an engineer.  When he was 16 he started attending art classes in the Royal Academy in Antwerp and turned out to be a natural talent.

(Jef Nys pictured in 2005, borrowed from Wiki)

Nys won a cartoonist competition for a local satirical weekly, and set his mind on becoming a full time cartoonist and caricaturist.  When his application to work as an animator was turned down by the Walt Disney Studios, he started dedicating himself to an enormous body of work, predominantly for periodicals of a conservative, catholic nature.

Nys’ most famous creation, Jommeke, started in 1955 as a short gag series.  In 1958 the first longer story about the straw haired kid was published in the Flemish daily Het Volk, and was an immediate success.  Since then, more than 50 million books (from a series with over 250 titles) have been sold.   Jommeke never really made it abroad, and that his success was essentially limited to Flanders.  Which means that every person in Belgium, young or old, owns about 10 Jommeke books…

(Jommeke’s album by and (c) Jef Nys)

Jef Nys was a hard worker, and a conscientious stylist.  He took great care of the clarity of his work, not only in the art, but also in the plot of the stories, which were always straightforward, without flashbacks or other rather intricate mechanisms.  An adventure may lead Jommeke and his friends to faraway countries, or it may plunge his village in comical disaster, but when the story is over, equilibrium is restored.  This made sure that Jommeke was and is a surefire hit with younger children, but also that the books lose their appeal once their readers grow up.

This may explain why Nys was never really taken seriously as an important cartoonist until fairly late in his life.  His work was showcased in the Classics From Flanders exhibition in Angouleme earlier this year, when a French version of one of the books was also presented to the public.

Nys has allowed his series to be continued after his death, provided that the tone of the series remains the same : no drugs, no guns, no sex, no violence.  And without a doubt, the same cast of well-known and loved characters.

Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium where he’s now pondering a little slice of his comics childhood; you can read more of his thoughts on his own Ephemerist blog.