Donald Duck - 'De Therapie van Jong' (Donald Duck #30, 29 July 1994).
Hilbert Bolland is a Dutch illustrator and comic colorist, especially known for his detailed technical drawings and educational illustrations. He has made several airbrush color cover illustrations for the Dutch Disney comic magazine Donald Duck. Bolland additionally was one of Theo van den Boogaard's assistants on the 'Sjef van Oekel' comic.
Early life and career
Hilbert Bolland was born in 1946 in the city of Haarlem into an artistic family, and grew up reading comics like Hergé's 'Tintin' and Willy Vandersteen's 'Suske en Wiske'. By the late 1960s, he played in a Haarlem-based beat band called Modesty Blaise (named after the British comic strip by Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway). Between 1969 and 1972, the band released three singles on the Polydor label. Around the same period, he became a longtime illustrator for the popular science monthly Kijk of the VNU publishing group.
'Een Dag in April' (Pep #14, 1974).
VNU magazines
From the 1970s through the 1990s, Bolland was also a freelance colorist and illustrator for VNU's comic magazines, such as Pep, Donald Duck and Mickey Maandblad. He is especially known for his airbrush colorings of Carl Barks illustrations for the Dutch Donald Duck weekly. Between 1982 and 1996, he also contributed several of his own full color cover illustrations. A famous Disney piece by Bolland, based on a lay-out by Michel Nadorp, was the 1986 poster featuring Donald and Daisy Duck in traditional Dutch national dress. His collaboration with the Dutch Disney weekly came to and end around the same time as the editors switched to digital coloring.
As a comic artist, Bolland made one three-page comic story for Pep magazine, 'Een dag in april' in issue #14 of 1974, and he provided the artwork for a 13-page 'Uncle Scrooge' story scripted by Jan Kruse, published in Donald Duck in 1994. During the late 1980s, Bolland also worked with comic artist Theo van den Boogaard, whom he assisted as background inker of the 'Sjef van Oekel' comic in VNU's Nieuwe Revu magazine. Van den Boogaard's other assistant at the time was Michel Custers.
Cover illustrations for Donald Duck, issue #51 (18 December 1992) and #43 (29 October 1993).
Other illustration work
In addition to magazines, Hilbert Bolland has worked extensively as an illustrator for school books. He also illustrated a couple of children's books, such as 'Koen de Wolkenvlieger' (RHA Publ, 2002) by Marianne Notschaele, about bed-wetting. He made a series of children's holiday booklets for the Dutch travelers' association ANWB, as well as a series of wall charts about agriculture and horticulture in the Netherlands. Further Disney-related artwork by Bolland was done for the puzzle production company Jumbo. Bolland also provided scientific artwork for the Planetarium in Amsterdam and Chriet Titulaer's 1989 House of the Future show house project in Rosmalen.
Later life
Bolland has spent several years in Breda, and nowadays resides in the village of Buire-au-Bois in the Hauts-de-France region of France.
'Donald Duck in the Netherlands' by Michel Nadorp and Hilbert Bolland (Donald Duck #39, 26 September 1986).