'Vis Op Het Droge' (2024).
Nik Heemskerk is a Dutch freelance illustrator and comic artist, whose work is characterized by comical absurdism and a strong historical interest in early pop culture and human habits. His graphic novel projects include 'Going Up In Smoke' (2018), about the history of smoking, and the grim fairy tale 'Vis op het Droge' (2024). Together with Milo Cremer Eindhoven, he is one of the regular scriptwriters of Disney comics for the Dutch Donald Duck weekly.
Early life and influences
Nik Heemskerk was born in 1993 in Rijnsburg, a town near Katwijk in South Holland. Through his family, and especially his father and uncle, his interest in comics and cartoons was sparked. His father Koos Heemskerk had attended Art Academy, published in the alternative comic magazine Gummi during the 1980s, and spent his professional career as a multimedia designer and illustrator with the commercial educational institution LOI. Nik's sister G.C. (Gijsje) Heemskerk works as a fine artist, specialized in installations and painting.
Between 2014 and 2018, Nik Heemskerk studied Illustration at the HKU University of the Arts in Utrecht, where his teacher Stefan van Dinther helped shape his perspective on comics. Another formative period was during his internship (2018-2019) with the Belgian comic artist Lukas Verstraete. Graphically, Nik Heemskerk is mostly influenced by the Italian comic master Benito Jacovitti, as well as the mangaka Osamu Tezuka and Yoshiharu Tsuge. Other important inspirations are comics and animation from the first half of the 20th century. In addition, he has credited his writing partner Milo Cremer Eindhoven for teaching him a lot about storytelling.
'Op' (from: Aline).
Illustrator
Active as a self-employed illustrator based in Leiden since 2018, Heemskerk has made illustrations for special interest magazines like Onze Taal and Koffie, Thee & Cacao, as well as the Belgian newspaper De Morgen. In addition, he has designed a record cover for the Paradiso pop stage, posters for the theater show 'De Wonderbaarlijke Wereld van Boudewijn Büch' and beer labels for Dok Brewing. With a strong sense for absurdism and grotesque characters, Nik Heemskerk has worked on several comic projects, including graphic novels and self-published zines, as well as contributions to Wasco's alternative comic anthology magazine Aline and the 'Lief Kutland' issue of Hard//hoofd magazine (2024).
'Going Up In Smoke' (2018).
Graphic novels
In 2018, the Belgian publishing house Bries released Heemskerk's debut comic book, 'Going Up In Smoke', a humorous exploration of the history of smoking. Together with his writing partner Milo Cremer Eindhoven, he collected several absurd and remarkable fun facts, and illustrated them with his comical drawings and photo collages. A connecting thread in the book was the story of his uncle Rob, who tries to convince his nephew why smoking is so great.
Six years later, Heemskerk released his second graphic novel, this time a solo effort, through Studio Hoekhuis. 'Vis Op Het Droge' (2024) was a dark fairy tale about a sister and her three brothers trying to survive in medieval times, in which the artist played with themes of magic, power and morality, as well as the dividing line between good and evil.
In 2021, Nik Heemskerk received the Fiep Westerdorp Incentive Award for a graphic novel project about Napoleon's campaign in Russia.
'My Horse Reynard', sample chapter of Nik Heemskerk's Napoleon comic.
Disney comics
For several of his comic projects, Heemskerk has worked in a close collaboration with Milo Cremer Eindhoven, a scriptwriter for film, animation and other media. Since 2020, they are regular scriptwriters of comic stories with Disney characters for the Dutch Disney magazines of publisher DPG Media. With their out-of-the-box approach and playful humor, their first stories starred the Big Bad Wolf, whom they gave female competition in the character of Wanda Vianda, a female wolf who is also after the Three Little Pigs. Subsequently, the writing team has also written longer and shorter stories, as well as gag strips, with Donald Duck and his family. In 2022, they were responsible for the reintroduction of Donald's zany cousin Fethry, after several decades of absence in the Dutch weekly. Among the other characters Heemskerk and Cremer Eindhoven have written stories for are the Junior Woodchucks and Humphrey Bear.
'Booom!'.