Wayward Girls
Michiel Budel is an Amsterdam-based Dutch comic artist, best-known for his oddball webcomic 'Wayward Girls' (2011-2013), which also gained notoriety in the USA. A later comic project was the small press zine 'Francine' (2014), which was short-lived.
Early life
Born in 1974, Budel studied Illustration and Theater Design at the Minerva Art Academy in Groningen. He subsequently had several office jobs while studying to become an art teacher. In his art, he draws inspiration from the work of Joost Roelofsz, and the narrative techniques of movies from film audio commentaries by directors and film connoisseurs.
Wayward Girls
In 2011, Budel started publishing his drawings and comics on the website slechtemeisjes.nl, and also promoted his short comic stories on Twitter and Facebook. The main characters of his comics were several, at first sight, charming pubescent girls (and later also green alien girls), who get into weird, absurd and uncomfortable situations. It is impossible to pinpoint anything normal in these one- and two-page stories. The almost childlike pencil drawings, pastel colors and panel lay-outs are in stark contrast with the bizarre and adult themes, which are full of fascist leanings, lesbian sex and global issues. Regularly referred to are comic artist Scott McCloud and the My Little Pony franchise. The use of largely incohesive narratives and the outright weirdness of the comic helps Budel get away with depicting rather risky subjects in a funny way.
In 2012, the independent New York-based publisher Secret Acres picked-up Budel's work, and released it in two comic books under the title 'Wayward Girls'. The series was widely praised in the USA, and even labeled as one of the "greatest comics of all time" by CBR.com. It subsequently gained some media attention in the Netherlands as well.
The artist at work
Francine
Budel moved on to create short stories with 'Francine', a character he named after Dutch children's novelist Francine Oomen. Francine is a Jewish girl who ends up in a nightmarish adventure with her friends Annet (a WASP) and Gislaine (an Islamic girl). The subjects in the stories can vary from ghost swimming pools and fake deaths to TV repairmen and Generation X. In 2014, a first collection of 'Francine' stories was published in the Netherlands by XTra. It contained both issues of 'Wayward Girls', an introduction to the character Francine in 'Francine: A Letter to the Taxman and Other Stories', as well as several reviews and an interview with the author. Budel has since released some one-euro comic zines with the character; the first as 'Franzine', and then under the self-explanatory title 'Zine'. They have been for sale are Desert Island Comics (Brooklyn, New York), Quimby's Bookstore (Chicago), Fatbottom (Barcelona, Spain) and Lambiek (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). In 2017, 'Francine' was also released in the USA through Secret Acres.
Budel's original art was for sale exclusively at comics shop Lambiek in Amsterdam in 2013. The Wayward Girls visited the store as well.