Donald Duck - 'De Therapie van Jong' (Donald Duck #30, 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 colour cover illustrations for the Dutch Disney comic magazine Donald Duck. Bolland additionally was a background artist on Theo van den Boogaard's 'Sjef van Oekel'.
Early life and career
He was born in 1946 in Haarlem into an artistic family, and grew up reading comics like Hergé's 'Tintin' and Willy Vandersteen's 'Suske en Wiske'. In the late 1960s and early 1970s he played in a Haarlem-based beat band called Modesty Blaise (named after the British comic strip by Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway). The band released three singles on the Polydor label between 1969 and 1972. Around the same period, he became a longtime illustrator for VNU's popular science monthly Kijk.
'Een Dag in april' (Pep #30, 1974).
Disney comics
During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Bolland was also a freelance colorist and illustrator for the VNU 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, although he has also contributed several of his own fullcolor cover illustrations between 1982 and 1996. Another famous Disney piece by Bolland is the 1986 poster featuring Donald and Daisy Duck in typical Dutch dress, which had a lay-out by Michel Nadorp. He made one short comic story for Pep magazine in 1974 and provided the artwork for one 13-page 'Donald Duck' story scripted by Jan Kruse, which was published in the weekly in 1994. Other Disney-related artwork was for the puzzle production company Jumbo, while further scientific artwork was for the Planetarium in Amsterdam and Chriet Titulaer's House of the Future in Rosmalen.
Children's book illustrations
Bolland has worked extensively as an illustrator for schoolbooks, and he has also illustrated a couple of children's books, such as 'Koen de Wolkenvlieger' (2002) by Marianne Notschaele, about bed-wetting. He made a series of children's holiday booklets for Dutch travelers' association ANWB, as well as a series of wall charts about agriculture and horticulture in the Netherlands.
Sjef van Oekel
During the late 1980s he worked with comic artist Theo van den Boogaard, whom he assisted on the backgrounds of the 'Sjef van Oekel' comic, along with Michel Custers.
Recent years
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, 1986).