'Hogwashed' (BNS Stripkrant 2010).
Frans Hasselaar is a Dutch comic artist, writer and editor. He has been a longtime art and comic editor for the Dutch Disney magazines, published subsequently by VNU, Sanoma and DPG Media. On the side, he has worked on personal comic projects, such as his own funny animal webcomic 'Hogwashed' (2009-2010, 2019), which he made under the pen name Frank Hollander. As a scriptwriter, he has created the non-Disney comics 'Max' (art by Michel Nadorp, 1996-1999) in Hitkrant, 'Veertigers' in Eppo (art by Jeroen Steehouwer, 2014-2016) and 'Beterman' (art by several artists, 2016- ) in Stripglossy.
Early life and career
Born in Amsterdam in 1962, Frans Hasselaar grew up reading Walt Disney's 'Donald Duck' and eventually developed a lifelong passion for American newspaper comics. Philosophically oriented series like Walt Kelly's 'Pogo' and Charles Schulz's 'Peanuts' have been major influences on his own comic projects, and he has also expressed his interest in the work of Bud Blake, Mort Walker, Johnny Hart and the underground artists Gilbert Shelton and Robert Crumb. At the start of his career, he developed his own newspaper comic strips and in vain offered them to publishers in the Netherlands and Flanders, as well as the USA.
'De Aap Is Los! 'Art by Ruben Pellejero, script by Frans Hasselaar (Donald Duck #39, 1989).
Donald Duck editor and art supervisor
In 1984, Hasselaar sold his first scripts to editor Thom Roep of Dutch Disney magazine Donald Duck, and was hired as an editor in the following year. While serving as an editor and translator for the magazines Donald Duck and Donald Duck Extra, he continued to write scripts with characters like 'The Big Bad Wolf', 'Br'er Rabbit' and 'Goofy'. Between 1989 and 1998, he wrote a great many one-page gags with 'Winnie the Pooh' for the pre-school magazine Disneyland, most of which were drawn by Daniel Pérez of Comicup Studio. He also wrote the script for the non-Disney comic 'De Aap Is Los!', about a chimpanzee with a fascination for cigars, who breaks free from a research lab in Amsterdam. The story was illustrated by the Spanish artist Ruben Pellejero and serialized in Donald Duck issues #35 through 47 of 1989.
In the 1990s, Hasselaar was transferred to the art department of the Disney magazines, where he oversaw the art and coloring of the local production of Disney comics in the Netherlands, after 2009 in collaboration with Ferdi Felderhof. Together with art supervisor Ed van Schuijlenburg, he has scouted and trained new local and foreign talents, including Bas Heymans, Jeroen Steehouwer, Sander Gulien, José Ramon Bernado and Carlo Gentina, as well as members of art studios like Comicup, Bardon Art and Magic Eye. For several years, he managed the in-house art department, which throughout the years has housed such artists as Michel Nadorp, Wilma van den Bosch, Viktor Venema, Jan-Roman Pikula, Maarten Janssens and Maarten Gerritsen. He has also thought up many of the editorial cartoons for sections like the reader's mail page, and has provided detailed briefings for artwork dedicated to commercial purposes and digital game projects.
Sketch for a cartoon related to one of the letters from Donald Duck's mail page. The final artwork was provided by Studio Comicup.
Comic production team
Since the mid-2010s, Frans Hasselaar has been part of Donald Duck weekly's comic production team, established by chief editor Joan Lommen to keep the Dutch Disney comics "future proof". Also consisting of Jos Beekman, Bas Schuddeboom, Lotte Roep, trafficker Karin Rookhuiszen and current chief editor Ferdi Felderhof, the team keeps a finger on the pulse of the changing times, while serving as contact persons for both the license owner, the Walt Disney Company, and the other European licensee of Disney comics, Egmont in Denmark. As one of the magazine's senior editors, Hasselaar has been responsible for the acquisition of comic scripts, with his focus being stories with Disney movie characters.
When in 2021 the universe of Br'er Rabbit disappeared from the magazine's pages, several of the forest animals in the Big Bad Wolf stories had to be replaced as well, with Hasselaar developing most of the new concepts. New rivals to Zeke Wolf in the forest world are the farmer Boer Boe and the poetic bully Bikkel Bullemans. The Foul Fellows' Club, of which the Big Bad Wolf is a member, was reinforced by the brawny crocodile Krelis and the resourceful lizard Slibber. A new trickster character was introduced in the person of Dittie, the mischievous niece of the forest sheriff. After writing the introduction stories for these characters himself, further scriptwork has been done by external writers under supervision of Hasselaar and his colleagues.
In 2022, Frans Hasselaar also updated the universe of the Brazilian poser parrot Jose Carioca to the modern times. Instead of a reckless womanizer, the Carioca character now has a steady girlfriend (Parquita), a wealthy father-in-law (Senhor Valores) and a direct rival (Paco Pedanto). After writing the first story of this new set-up himself, he outsourced the writing of the feature to Alex van Koten.
'Hogwashed' (16 June 2010). The line "back to the drawing board" originates from a famous cartoon by Peter Arno.
Tina/Zo Zit Dat
When in between 2008 and 2017 the other children's magazines of the Sanoma publishing company were grouped within the same editorial department as the Disney titles, Hasselaar also oversaw the comics production of girls' magazine Tina and popular science magazine Zo Zit Dat. In this capacity, he has plotted with Jan Vriends in developing Tina magazine's new title character, who was launched in 2013. He most notably developed the characters and outset of 'Professor Breinstein', the back cover gag comic of Zo Zit Dat. Debuting in 2011, the gag strip stars a kid called Joost and his next door neighbor, Professor Breinstein. Among the rest of the cast are Breinstein's pet dino Trex, his robot helper A3 and the bat Vlad. Initially Developed as a studio production, most of the later plots were written by editors like Jos Beekman, Bas Schuddeboom and Simone Ruitenbeek, while the artwork was provided by the Comicup artists Dany Fernandez, Sonia Álbert and Andrea Dotta under supervision of Jan-Roman Pikula and Viktor Venema. In 2018, the 'Professor Breinstein' comic was completely handed over to Roel Venderbosch, and since 2019 to Jordi Peters.
Scripts for non-Disney comics
In addition to his daytime job, Hasselaar has worked on several side projects. During the 1990s, he made contributions to the comic news magazine Stripschrift. With his friend and colleague Michel Nadorp, he created comic strips like 'De Nitwits' for Club Veronica, 'Ab van de AbvaKabo' for the Dutch labor union AbvaKabo (1980s), as well as the gag strip 'Max!' in the teen magazine Hitkrant (1996-1999). He participated in the 2006 comics contest of Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool with the superhero parody 'Beterman', drawn by Maarten Janssens and Gerben Valkema. This comic also made an appearance in MYX Magazine, and since 2016 has been revived for the StripGlossy by Uitgeverij Personalia. Each episode is drawn by another artist, such as Maarten Gerritsen, Tim Artz, Michel Nadorp, Henrieke Goorhuis, Daan Jippes, Jeroen Steehouwer, Hans van Oudenaarden and Jan-Roman Pikula. For comic magazine Eppo, he wrote 'Veertigers' (2014-2016), a gag comic about three men in their forties, suffering from midlife crises and the physical complaints that come with their age. The artwork was provided by Jeroen Steehouwer (initially in collaboration with Frans Leenheer), and in 2016 collected in one album by Don Lawrence Collection.
Strip posted on Facebook on 3 November 2013. Translation: "We collect money for 'Bakers Without Arms'... - 'Good cause, good cause.' - 'Then you probably want to buy this foot-baked apple pie?' - 'Oh, sure!'.
Webcomics
While having a steady day job, Hasselaar enjoyed creating comics in the newspaper strip format. Under the pen name Frank Hollander, he wrote and drew his 'Pogo'-inspired web comic 'Hogwashed' for the Comics Sherpa website in 2009 and 2010. The strip was also featured in the annual BNS Stripkrant. Between 2013 and 2014, and again throughout 2019, Hasselaar published occasional comic strips on his Facebook page with a starring role for himself. Besides the artist himself, the cast of this meta-humor comic strip contained a talking tree stump and his 'Hogwashed' characters. Since 2023, he has returned to using funny animal characters for his gag strips, most notably the pig Hoggy Hog, this time in an urban setting.
Webcomic of 19 July 2024.
Graphic contributions
In 2017, Frans Hasselaar was one of the authors participating in Eppo's tribute project for Martin Lodewijk's 'Agent 327' comic. He made the episode 'Dossier Salto Mortale' with the artist Kees de Boer, published in Eppo #12 of 2017. For Stripglossy, he was additionally the writer of new stories with Dino Attanasio's 'Signor Spaghetti' (2019- ), for which Daan Jippes provided the artwork.
Frans Hasselaar, interviewed on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Dutch Donald Duck weekly in 2017.