Dees Dubbel - 'Het Gouden Kanon' (Ohee #617).
Rik Clément was a Belgian journalist and cartoonist, working extensively for the newspaper Het Volk and its supplements, as well as the Averbode magazines Averbode's Weekblad and Zonneland. As a comic creator, he is best remembered for his humorous adventure series 'Dees Dubbel' (1955-1982), the humorous detective series 'Jan Knap' (also known as 'Dick Durf', 1963-1964) and the medieval chivalry series 'Ridder Reinhart' (also known as 'Reinhart, De Eenzame Ridder', 1955-1963). Rik Clément should not be confused with Rik Jottier, whose comics were also signed with merely "Rik".
Early life and career
Henri Clément, who used pseudonyms like Rik and Rik Leeman, was born in 1920 in Sint-Amandsberg, a sub-municipality of Ghent. When he was twenty years old, he studied painting at the Sint-Lucas School of Arts in Ghent, but within a year, World War II interrupted his studies. Inspired by Hergé, Clément tried his luck as a comic artist, and in 1943, his work appeared in the children's supplement of the Nazi-controlled newspaper De Jonge Nationaal-Socialist. After the war, Clément picked up his studies again and graduated in art history and architecture from the University of Ghent. Initially, he earned his money as a painter and illustrator, while considering a job as a teacher.
'Ridder Reinhart' - 'De Weerwolf van het Ravenbos'.
Het Volk
In the late 1940s, Clément made drawings for Taptoe, the children's supplement of the newspaper Het Volk (not to be confused with the Dutch school magazine Taptoe). Through this job, he became a reporter and editor for Het Volk, where he illustrated his own articles. For many years, Clément remained affiliated with this paper, and worked extensively for its supplements Ons Zondagsblad and 't Kapoentje, while his work also appeared in their Walloon counterparts Samedi Jeunesse and Le Petit Luron. In 1970, Clément became chief editor of Ons Zondagsblad.
On 21 February 1949, Het Volk began serialization of Clément's first genuine comic strip built around a recurring character, 'Bazielken in Amerika'. Written by Pol Ingier, the 'Bazielken' comic had a satirical streak. Until 1950, three more stories appeared: 'Bazielken Redt de Frank', 'Bazielken en het Levenselixer' and 'Bazielken, De Held van Mato Grosso'. Starting in 1950, Clément became a prominent illustrator and cartoonist for 't Kapoentje, designing headers, logos and lettering, and making illustrations for serials like 'De Mannen van 't Pleintje'. Together with his good friend, novelist John Flanders, he made the one-shot 13-page adventure comic 'Het Vuur van St. Elmus' (1952), based on a folkloric legend from the Shetland Islands. It began serialization in 't Kapoentje on 20 November 1952, but was created a couple of years earlier. Clément was additionally the creator of the character 'Vader Kapoen', a fatherly figure telling stories to 't Kapoentje's young readers. In 1969, the comic artist Buth reused the character, but in a redesigned version as host of a series of historical-educational biographical comics.
From the 1950s through the early 1980s, Clément created several comic series for 't Kapoentje and Het Volk. Most of these stories were later reprinted in Ohee, a weekly children's magazine published by newspaper Het Volk.
'Jan Knap'.
Ridder Reinhart
One of Clément's longer-running comic series in 't Kapoentje was 'Reinhart, De Eenzame Ridder', later shortened to 'Ridder Reinhart' (1955-1963). Debuting on 10 November 1955, this chivalry comic about a lonely medieval knight was drawn in a realistic style that obviously borrows heavily from Harold Foster's 'Prince Valiant' and H.G. Kresse's 'Eric de Noorman'. In fact, Reinhart's face bears a canny resemblance to Eric de Noorman's physical appearance. The noble knight enjoyed eleven long adventures until 1963.
Jan Knap
Starting on 25 June 1963, Clément introduced another series in 't Kapoentje, 'Jan Knap', about a brilliant detective. The character was in many ways very similar to Maurice Tillieux's 'Gil Jourdan', down to his design and profession.
Dees Dubbel
Clément's best-known and longest-running comic series was 'Dees Dubbel'. The pot-bellied, mustached character was first introduced to readers of the Sunday supplement Ons Zondagsblad on 27 November 1955. A decade later, when the series became a daily after moving to the pages of Het Volk itself, Dees was given a sidekick: the traveling salesman César. Known for its folksy humor and Ghent dialect, the series introduced several other recurring characters over the years, such as Dees' sister Coletje, the not so beautiful Oeligoeli from Lolalulu, Professor Piet Agoras (a pun on Greek mathematician Pythagoras) and and the Breton orphan boy Pigoe. Retitled 'De Daverende Daden van Dees Dubbel en Cesar', the series lasted until 1982, running for a total of 45 long stories.
Oddly enough for such a straightforward innocent humor series, 'Dees Dubbel' was the subject of controversy on two occasions. During the early years, Clément was at one point approached by a canon because Dees was living in the same home as his sister. The priest felt this was "too suggestive" and forced the artist to change this situation. Indeed, in the next story, Dees moved out of his sister's house, but still remained closeby, in a trailer in her garden. A far stranger and longer-lasting controversy was the supposed plagiarism between 'Dees Dubbel' and Marc Sleen's 'Doris Dobbel' comic series from the magazine De Middenstand. Both protagonists not only have a similar name but also share a physical resemblance: both are chubby middle-aged men with black trousers. Given that 'Dees Dobbel' moved to Het Volk right after Sleen had left the paper for De Standaard, the similarities were even more notable. Over the years, some readers accused either Clément or Sleen of ripping off each other. However, most of these accusations proved ungrounded. Sleen's 'Doris Dobbel' is a gag comic that debuted in 1950, while 'Dees Dubbel' was a humorous adventure series, first published in 1955. On top of that, Sleen and Clément got along fine with each other. In the 'Nero' story 'De Ark van Nero' (1952-1953), Sleen had both his own name and that of Rik Clément appear in Satan's 'Book of the Damned', a humorous nod between colleagues.
Cover illustrations for Ohee! (22 August 1970) and Zonneland (#47, 22 November 1963).
Averbode
Besides Het Volk, Rik Clément was also a contributor to the magazines of the Catholic publishing house Averbode. Around, he began making moody and expressionist illustrations for text stories by John Flanders in Averbode's Weekblad. With this writer, he also created the realistically drawn adventure comic 'Pat Patterson en het Groene Oog' (1959). Clément and Flanders additionally created the one-shot mystery and adventure stories 'De Straat der 7 Duivels', 'De Rokende Doodskop' and 'Kerstnacht te Preston'. All three stories were reprinted in 2001 by Brabant Strip in one volume of their 'Fenix' series. In 2004, A longer story by Flanders and Clément from the same period, 'De Steeg van de Gehangene', was also reissued in album format by Brabant Strip.
Another Clément creation for Averbode's Weekblad was the gag strip 'Kadijster', introduced on 31 January 1960. Clément's drawings also showed up in print in Averbode's children's Zonneland, where from 4 March 1962 on, he published four adventures of 'De Musketiers van 't Schipperskwartier' ("The Musketeers of the Skipper's Quarters"). These stories were later reprinted in Het Volk's magazine Ohee.
'Kadijster'.
Other publications
In 1950, Clément also illustrated two text stories for Tintin magazine, one by Raoul Dautry and one by Tonet Timmermans. In 1975, Clément and writer Daniël Jansens were present in Tintin again with the mini-book comic story 'La Dernière Chevauchée de "Viande-ridée". For the Belgian union weekly De Volksmacht, Rik Clément created 'Everard 't Serclaes' (1955), a comic strip adaptation of Hendrik Conscience's chivalry novel of the same name. It appeared in text comics format, with the text in captions underneath the images. Clément's illustrations also appeared in Vlaamse Filmpjes, Snoeck's Almanak and in two magazines distributed in the Belgian colony Congo: De Week and Le Courier d'Afrique. In 1985, Rik Clément drew two propaganda comics to motivate voters to choose for the local Christian Democratic politicians Stijn Couvreur and Anne-Marie De Moor. Other Belgian cartoonists who once made party propaganda comics have been Luc Cromheecke, Shirow Di Rosso, Ian, Mark Janssen and Geert Kinnaert.
'Everard t'Serclaes'.
Final years and death
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Rik Clément remained a productive illustrator. He could work quickly and efficiently, which made him much in demand. Not bothered by any artistic pretenses, Clément made simple adventure comics with amusement as his only goal. He saw his comic career as second to his journalistic career. In 1986, he quit drawing comics, but remained active writing journalistic reports under the pseudonym "Clem Henry" until the early 2000s. Among his notable articles were the ones dealing with the stolen panel from the triptych 'Adoration of the Mystic Lamb', a painting by Jan and Hubert van Eyck, in the Sint-Baafskathedraal in Ghent. Rik Clément passed away in 2008.
Rik Clément.