'De Avonturen van Tom Mak' (Volk en Staat, 22 December 1940).
C. Dick was a mysterious mid-20th century Belgian comic artist. His sole comic strip was the detective story 'De Avonturen van Tom Mak' (1940-1941), published during World War II in the Nazi-controlled newspaper Volk en Staat.
De Avonturen van Tom Mak
Nothing is known about the artist behind the signature "C. Dick". Between 22 December 1940 and 15 February 1941, his comic strip 'Tom Mak' appeared semi-daily in Volk en Staat, a Flemish nationalist newspaper affiliated with the political party Flemish National League (Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond, AKA the VNV). During World War II, Volk en Staat appeared under supervision of the Nazi oppressor. In the days prior to the launch of 'Tom Mak', the newspaper enthusiastically announced the upcoming arrival of this exciting "children's novella" about an American Private Investigator on its front page. In the first episode, the hard-nosed PI is called to help recover the stolen plans of Professor Kori for a shrink ray. After some keen sleuthing and a dangerous car chase, Mak manages to recover the stolen plans.
Front page announcement for the adventures of Tom Mak (Volk en Staat, 19 December 1940).
The narrative then jumps to three years further, when the professor constructed his invention and is planning to demonstrate its working. Together with his nephew Jim and his fiancee, he plans to shrink himself to atomic size and, with his special Obus aircraft, journey into a coin. In the meantime, the criminal, known as "The Fox", breaks out of jail and hides himself inside the Obus, where he surprises the professors and his fellow travelers after they reach the coin. While Tom's takes out the crook's henchmen, the miniaturized professor invents a magnifying beam and tests it on a fly, which then reaches life-threatening proportions. The Fox attacks the fly and is killed. When the professor and his crew return to their normal sizes, the scientist praises Tom for his heroic actions. End of story.
The cartoonist C. Dick
Created in a semi-realistic drawing style with much cross-hatching, the artist was obviously inspired by American comic strips like Chester Gould's 'Dick Tracy'. At one point, the professor hands Tom Mak a bracelet with a video device, comparable to Dick Tracy's innovative two-way wrist watch. Overall, both the storytelling and the artwork are rather naïve. After the conclusion of Tom Mak's first and only case, nothing more was heard of the fearsome sleuth, nor its creator C. Dick. When in September 1944 Belgium was liberated from the Nazis, Volk en Staat was instantly disbanded. It is not known whether Dick, like so many other journalists, editors and cartoonists who worked for Nazi-controlled publications, was ever arrested or indicted for Nazi collaboration. It is also unknown whether he was still alive by that point. Other cartoonists who once drew for Volk en Staat have been Buth, Paul Jamin, Armand Panis and Willy Vandersteen.
'De Avonturen van Tom Mak' (Volk en Staat, 10 February 1941).