Theo van den Boogaard

As a schoolboy, Theo van den Boogaard published his first comics in the Dutch hippy music magazine, Hitweek. He started out with the series 'Striptease', in which he gave social comments by using song texts. He then began 'Witje en Gertje' in cooperation with Jan Donkers in 1967. This series was continued in Aloha from 1968 to 1969. Also for Aloha, he created 'Ans en Hans Krijgen de Kans'.

For the Dutch sixties youngsters, the 'Ans en Hans' comix stood for free sexuality. 'Ans en Hans' also marked Van den Boogaard's comic book debut. Other comics he did for magazines were 'Jan Alleman' (Gandalf, 1970-1971) and Ábe, een Hotshot van een Voetballerina' (Voetbal International, 1972).

Van den Boogaard broke into mainstream comics with the 'Sjef van Oekel' series, that appeared in Nieuwe Revu from 1976. With this adaptation of TV personality Van Oekel (a mixture of an opera singer, a door-to-door salesman and an anarchist gentleman-philosopher), van den Boogaard and scriptwriter Wim T. Schippers had a big hit. The typical nonsensical Van Oekel language found its way into everyday speech. After the death of Dolf Brouwers, the actor who played Sjef van Oekel on TV, the 'Sjef van Oekel' series was discontinued.

Theo van den Boogaard is much admired for his detailed clear line drawings. Recently, he has concentrated on widely different free and commercial works, many of which were collected in the exquisite catalogue 'Taal en teken' (Oog & Blik, 1992).