Pieter Hogenbirk studied to become a drawing teacher, but has been active as an illustrator and cartoonist since 1983. Among his earliest work were the illustrations for educational booklets by Albert Heijn. He has been affiliated with the Comic House agency since 1987, through which he has done many commercial assignments, as well as studio projects on animation productions for Lays, PWN, Golden Tulip, Etos and Howe. Besides his commercial work, he is co-founder of gallery De Rookerij in Huizen, and he has also assisted Hanco Kolk on the inking of the 'Gilles de Geus' comic.
'Rembrandt'. Translation: "You're not going to paint again, are you? We were supposed to have a nice picknick." - "Eh". - "Couldn't you have taken a larger canvas with you?!" - "Grmpf".
Pieter Hogenbirk has worked extensively for scouting magazines. He created 'Scouty' with Hanco Kolk for Scouting Magazine, the semi-autobiographical comic 'Heine & Hoogie' with Martin Heynen for De Zwerver and 'Ross & Robbie' with Herman Roozen for Scouts Info and IXIXEL. Hogenbirk has participated in the 2006 comics contest held by Amsterdam daily Het Parool with his comic 'Rembrandt', and ended third. In 2006, he also published the first episodes of his comic 'De Pagina Monologen' in MYX Magazine.
He has been present in Eppo magazine since 2009 with the comics 'Tim Tijdloos' with Willem Ritstier, 'De Bandini's' with Ger Apeldoorn, and most notably 'De Ruyter' with Herman Roozen. 'De Ruyter' and 'Tim Tijdloos' have both been published in book format by Strip2000. For National Geographic Junior, he made the comic 'Steffie & Flint' with Pieter van Oudheusden.
For local newspapers, Hogenbirk developed the weekly comic strips 'Jaap & Joopie' (Het Nieuwsblad voor Huizen) and 'Tromp & Truffel' (Laarder Courant de Bel). Hogenbirk makes autobiographical comics under the title 'My, Myself and I', and he has self-published several book collections of his comics under his own Cartoony label. He is additionally the author of the monthly 'Paparazzo' comic stamps for PostNL. Since 2013 he draws 'Koning van Oranje', a gag comic about Dutch monarch Willem Alexander. Other similar gag comics about the Dutch royal couple have been Ruud Straatman's 'Royaal Modaal' (2003-2006) and Marc de Boer's 'Willem & Max' (2017).
In 2020 he joined 75 Dutch & Flemish comic artists to make a graphic contribution to the free collective comic book 'Striphelden versus Corona’ (Oogachtend, Uitgeverij L, 2020). The book is intended to support comics stores who had to close their doors for two months during the lockdown at the height of the COVID-19 virus pandemic.
'Tim Tijdloos' (Eppo, 2009).