Diary strip by Michiel van de Pol of 9 September 2024 about playing hide-and-seek with his grandson Jackson.
Michiel van de Pol is a Dutch illustrator, live cartoonist and graphic novelist, best-known for his autobiographical comics. Starting out in the Dutch small press scene of the late 1990s, Van de Pol gradually found his way to mainstream media with his diary comics, appearing under titles like 'Medicijnman', 'Cartoondiarree' or simply 'Michiel'. Generally based on true stories and everyday banalities, Van de Pol's diary comics also make use of metaphors and exaggerations, while the artist's childlike, but effective drawing style adds to the absurdity. While most of his diary entries are four-panel strips, he has also created longer autobiographical narratives, such as 'Michieltjes Jongenshart' (2006), 'Terug Naar Johan' (2010) and 'Scherpschutters' (2012), as well as fictional graphic novels like 'Spotters' (2016) and 'De Gevoelige Mannenclub' (2020).
Early life and career
Michiel van de Pol was born in 1965 in Tilburg, a city in the province of Noord-Brabant. As a child, he developed a fond interest in comics and drawing, initially through the mainstream children's comics of the time. Later, he discovered the autobiographical comic creators from the USA and Canada, most notably Robert Crumb, Chester Brown and Joe Matt. Other artists who influenced his own art have been Bill Watterson and James Kochalka.
Between 1983 and 1989, he studied at the Tilburg Academy of Visual Arts, initially aiming to become a teacher. After graduation, he spent seven years working as an autonomous visual artist, sculpting and building constructions from wooden slats and metal plates. In 1992 and 1995, he received grants from the Fund for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture for his projects. As guidelines for the construction of his artworks, he used instructional comics, which paved the way for his later career. In 1996, Van de Pol switched to a career as an illustrator, working for magazines and corporations.
'Mol' (SjoSji #19, 1997-19). Translation: "Lovely! Head in sand and nobody to bother you. Hi mole." - "As an ostrich you can deal with your problems in two different ways! Head in sand or..." - "Looking for a solution?" - "Running from it as fast as possible!".
Early comics
As a comic creator, Van de Pol debuted in 1995 with the comic strip 'Mol' (1995-1997) in the indie comic magazine Impuls, edited by Reinder Dijkhuis and Kilian Hekhuis. Between 1996 and 1998, this funny animal gag strip about a mole and his interactions with other animals also ran in the comic magazine SjoSji magazine, Van de Pol's first mainstream publication. For SjoSji, Van de Pol also wrote a couple of scripts for the 'Sjors & Sjimmie' comic, made under supervision of Robert van der Kroft, Wilbert Plijnaar and Jan van Die, but at the time drawn by Spanish art studios like Comicup. However, he gained most notability with his autobiographical comics, which during the 1990s remained limited to the Dutch small press comics scene.
'Medicijn Man'.
Autobiographical comics
With the birth of his first son Cas in 1996, Van de Pol's urge to create autobiographical comics was triggered. His initial aim was to chronicle his son's development, only for private use. After a while, his autobiographical comics focused on the artist himself, and he began mailing his self-made books to his friends under the title 'Opgedrongen Boekie' ("Forced Booklet"). With the tips and tricks of Maaike Hartjes, one of the leading artists of comic diaries in the Netherlands, Van de Pol gradually found his style. As he was delivering medicine as a day job, he changed the name of his autobiographical comic to 'Medicijnman'.
Under this title, Van de Pol quickly established his trademark focus on everyday trivialities and the absurdities of life. While the name "Medicijnman" hints at superhero bravado, the artist's portrayal of himself is far from that. Scenes from his dull day job are mixed with embarrassing moments, clumsy household behavior and descriptions of seemingly irrelevant events. All of these banalities are enhanced by the comic's scribbly drawing style and messy page layout. Even though Van de Pol is generally a shy man, he has made his comics with shameless candour and self-mockery, including private moments like going to the toilet and bedroom activity. In an interview with Peter van Brummelen for Het Parool (25 January 2025), Van de Pol remarked: "I try to use as little self-censorship as possible. If it's not honest, then it's nothing. But it's not that I have no shame at all, because I only show what I want to show."
'Kinderen'. Diary comic of 30 January 2005.
Medicijnman/Cartoondiarree
From 1999 until the early 2000s, Michiel van de Pol self-published several 'Medicijnman' mini-comix under his Pol en Grasland imprint. Gradually, the autobiographical comics of Michiel van de Pol found their way to more mainstream magazines, newspapers and book publishers, while the title changed over the years. In the early 2000s, the 'Medicijnman' strips appeared in the newspapers Brabants Dagblad and Algemeen Dagblad, as well as the comic magazines MYX and Zone 5300. In 2003, he also got a spot in the women's weekly Flair, where his strip was renamed to simply 'Michiel'.
Comic by Michiel van de Pol, 8 September 2014.
During the mid-2000s, Van de Pol was publishing his comic diaries online, using the title 'Cartoondiarree' ("Cartoon Diarrhoea"). Under this title, he also participated in the 2006 Comics Contest organized by the Amsterdam daily Het Parool and the Comic House agency. He came in first, after which his 'Cartoondiarree' strip ran in this paper for two years. Between March 2006 and January 2007, Michiel van de Pol was one of the autobiographical comic artists involved in the daily newspaper feature 'ECHT' in NRC.Next. The project was initiated by Margreet de Heer, and also included Floor de Goede, Maaike Hartjes, Gerrie Hondius, and Barbara Stok. Further autobiographical work by Van de Pol has appeared in Eisner and StripNieuws.
'Michieltjes Jongenshart'.
Graphic novels
In August 2000, the first collection of Michiel van de Pol's comic diaries was released by De Prom/De Fontein under the title 'Medicijnman of: het Getekende Leven van Michiel van de Pol'. A second collection followed in 2002 at Silvester, 'Medicijnman - Een Wolk op Pootjes' (2002). A 'Cartoondiarree' collection was published by Oog & Blik in 2007. While his serialized cartoon diaries generally consist of four panels, Van de Pol eventually began working on longer narratives, directly for book publications. His first thematic story was 'Michieltjes Jongenshart' (Silvester, 2006), in which he deals with his childhood struggles in finding love.
'Spotters' (2016).
Van de Pol's 2010 graphic novel 'Terug naar Johan' (Oog & Blik, 2010) was a touching coming-of-age story about friendship, adolescent dreams and first love. In the book, Van de Pol tells about how he and his childhood friend Johan slowly grew apart. Guided by hormones, Michiel became more and more interested in girls and sex, while Johan delved into studying insects and assembling electronics. When eventually it turns out that the boys are not that different after all, the gap between them has become too big and the friendship is lost. In his next graphic novel, 'Scherpschutters' (Oog & Blik, 2012) dealt with the author's difficult relationship with his father. To spice up the story, Van de Pol for the first time added some fictional elements to the narrative.
'De Gevoelige Mannenclub' (2020).
Van de Pol switched to full fiction for the critically acclaimed 'Spotters' (Oog & Blik, 2016), a sensitive graphic novel about the relationship between a quiet and withdrawn plane spotter and a writer who loses herself in her fantasy world. His subsequent work of fiction was the graphic novel 'De Gevoelige Mannenclub' (Scratch, 2020), which also delved into the emotional life of men. In that same year, a book collection of his diary comics from the lockdown period during the COVID-19 pandemic appeared under the title 'Huidhonger' (Scratch, 2020).
(Live) cartoonist
Besides comics, Van de Pol has made illustrations and cartoons for newspapers and magazines like NRC Handelsblad, Flair, Quest, HP/De Tijd, Nieuwe Revu, Veronica Magazine and StripNieuws. His often absurd cartoons show influences from Gary Larson and Gummbah, and have been collected in the book 'Balletjes' (2009) by Jean-Marc van Tol's publishing house Catullus. In 2012 and 2013, he illustrated two volumes of the travel guide 'Universele Reisgids voor Moeilijke Landen' ("Universal Travel Guide for Difficult Countries") by Jelle Brandt Corstius. Through Hans Buying's Comic House agency, Michiel van de Pol also works for commercial clients.
Cartoon by Michiel van de Pol. Translation: "Even Ton van Royen's last attempt to pamper his wife Heleen didn't help.'
Since 2007, his main activity has been working as a live cartoonist at events, workshops, meetings and congresses. On his website, Van de Pol described that "complex business processes often become much clearer with images than with words or the umpteenth PowerPoint presentation full of graphs and diagrams." Among his many clients have been corporations (Sanofi Diabetes, the Bruil construction group, Cap Gemini, KPMG, Ernst & Young), governmental institutions (the municipality of Roosendaal, Stedin, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport), banks (ABN AMRO, ING), the food industry (Danone, Heineken), public utility companies (the Dutch Railways) and many more. In addition, he has made cartoons-on-location and short animations about current events for TV shows like EenVandaag, De Wereld Draait Door and De Wereld Leert Door.
In his 2022 book 'Hoe ik mijn Fortuin Maakte als Live-Cartoonist' ("How I Made My Fortune As A Live-Cartoonist"), Michiel van de Pol humorously showed what it is like to support companies as a cartoonist during business meetings.
Michiel van de Pol, signing at comic shop Lambiek on 16 September 2022. Photo © Titus Vegter.
Graphic contributions
During the early 2000s, Van de Pol was one of the artists participating in Gerrie Hondius's 'Teken Mijn Verhaal' ("Draw My Story") initiative, a foundation that draws out the (comic) stories created by handicapped children. Van de Pol was also one of the contributing artists to 'Mooi is dat' (2010) and 'Filmfanfare' (2012), two anthologies with comic interpretations of Dutch literary works and movies. For the first, he made a comic based on Erwin Mortier's book 'Godenslaap', for the latter, he made a graphic adaptation of the 1997 documentary film 'O Amor Natural' by Heddy Honigmann. In 2014, he was one of the comic creators for the first volume of the anthology series 'Op Missie' (Strip2000, 2014), in which comic artists tell the true life stories of war veterans.
Recognition
In 2010, Michiel van de Pol won the Clickie Award for "Best Gag Clickie" with his webcomic 'Cartoondiarree'. His graphic novel 'Terug Naar Johan' was awarded the 2011 Willy Vandersteen Prize. On 25 January 2025, it was announced that Michiel van de Pol was the winner of the 2025 Stripschap Prize, the most prominent Dutch comic award, handed out by the comic appreciation society Het Stripschap.
Michiel van de Pol has been named an influence by Margreet de Heer. His son Cas van de Pol (b. 20 February 1996) is a Dutch freelance animator, known for his short animated comedy films which he posts on his popular YouTube channel. His other son Emiel is a furniture maker.
2014 comic by Michiel van de Pol in support of comic shop Lambiek in Amsterdam.