'Scribbly'. Translation: "Marjan from Amsterdam writes: 'When I miss just one episode I can't follow
this strip anymore and it really annoys me... Can't we screen these letters before I read them?"
Jean-Paul Arends is the creator of the popular comic strip 'Scribbly', which was published daily in the Metro newspaper between 1999 and 2010. Arends was born in The Hague and studied advertising and presentation techniques in Boxtel. Arends developed 'Scribbly' in 1994. By 1996 he started making daily episodes, hanging them on the bulletin board of his school. Inspired by comic characters like Bill Watterson's 'Calvin & Hobbes' and Luc Cromheecke's 'Taco Zip', Scribbly and his friends have bizarre adventures set against the background of a mental institution.
'Scribbly'. Translation: "I would like to experience another exciting adventure again." - "Arf! Arf! Arf!" - "What? Did you dig up a mysterious coffin in the garden?" - "No, I said: "Arf! Arf! Arf!".
The minimalist style of 'Scribbly' (no speech balloons or backgrounds) and its surreal storyline earned Jean-Paul Arends some criticism from newspaper readers, as well as a crowd of devoted fans. Scribbly's first album, 'Ik Hoop Dat Die Ene Goeie Erin Staat', was published in May 2001 and several more collections have followed. Arends has additionally made the semi-autobiographic editorial comic strip 'De Eerlijkheid' with Patrice van der Linden for MYX Stripmagazine. He is also the scriptwriter and co-director of the Dutch slasher film 'Woensdag' (2005). He lives and works in Tilburg.
www.scribbly.nl (in dutch)