Barbara Stok

Barbara Stok was born in Groningen in 1970, and began her career as a journalist/reporter for the regional press. Since her student days, she has made drawings for the Groningen pop-cultural centre Vera. Inspired by independent comics like Joe Matt's 'Peepshow', she started making comics.

Barbara started self-publishing her open-hearted autobiographical 'Barbaraal' comix in 1996. In November, 1998, Barbara was in virtually all Dutch media when her comic book anthology 'Barbaraal Tot Op Het Bot' was published in traditional book format by the literary editor Nijgh & Van Ditmar. Since then, the publisher has released more collections, such as 'Je Geld of je Leven' (2003), 'Nu we hier toch zijn' (2005), 'Op Tour door Spanje' (2007) and 'Dan maak je maar zin' (2009). Her early comics mostly dealt with loud music, sex and drunkenness, but later on she used other themes like burnout, capitalism and fear of death.

Now a fulltime cartoonist and comic artist, she has done assignments for the VPRO, HP De Tijd, Rabobank and Algemeen Dagblad. Barbara also did a monthly one-page comic in the trendy young girl magazine, One. She makes a weekly comic for NRC and is a drummer in the band De Straaljagers. Together with Maaike Hartjes and Gerrie Hondius she forms the core of the so-called Dutch female comic scene. She won the Stripschapsprijs in 2009.