Jean-Pol

Jean-Paul van den Broeck studied decorative arts at the Saint Luc in Brussels. He made his debut with 'Calypso' in the magazine Ohee in 1962. He learned the comics profession while working at the Real Presse comic agency, where he edited foreign comics and photo-comics. While working at the agency, Jean-Pol began illustrating for a variety of Flemish magazines under several pseudonyms. He began a collaboration with writer Jacques Acar, and created short comics for the magazines Tintin/Kuifje and Pilote. From 1966, he also made a few promotional stories with 'Bibendum', the rotund mascot for Michelin.

He had his true debut with 'Bertje Kluizenaar' in Libelle and 'Le Mystère de Mornetour' in the daily Sud-Ouest. In 1967, he became the assistant of Hurey, and cooperated on the gag series 'De Lustige Kapoentjes' and 'Piet Fluwijn en Bolleke' in Pats magazine. For the agency I.F.S., he created the daily strip 'Bi-bips', a comic about two alien creatures studying human behavior. It appeared in several European newspapers and it was the first comic to gain him international fame.

Jean-Pol created several series for the Catholic publishing house Averbode, such as 'Jip' (1967), 'Pickelby' (1969), 'Willie Wervelwind' (1969) and 'Koekplankenkoorts' (1974). His most famous creation for this publisher was however 'Annie en Peter', which he drew with scripts by K. Haerens from 1971. All these series appeared in the Averbode magazines Zonnestraal and Zonneland.

In 1970, he developed the series 'Kramikske van de Bakker' together with Daniel Jansens for De Volksmacht. This young baker apprentice became Jean-Pol's most famous series, and appeared in De Volksmacht until 1989. Two longer stories appeared in Het Volk in 1991 and 1992.

While working on his main series 'Kramikske' and 'Annie en Peter', Jean-Pol also created the candy advertisement comic 'Lutti-Kids' with Bédu in Zie-Magazine in 1979. Together with Wim Swerts, he adapted the Flemish television series 'Samson' to comics from 1993, and he continued the series 'Sammy' in Spirou after Berck's retirement in 1994. Jean-Pol announced his own retirement from the series in 2010.