Marcel de Jong formed AAARCH!!! Comics Amsterdam, together with Marco Kuipers. The two of them became good friends at the IVKO (Individueel Voortgezet Kunstzinnig Onderwijs), where they almost immediately started working on comix like 'Pisa' and 'Magnum'. Unfortunately, the period after the IVKO institute did not turn out to be glory days for the two young artists. Marcel, after a period as an unemployed illustrator and a thousand and one parties, ended up in a mental hospital. All the while, Marcel and Marco produced impressive amounts of graphic work: dozens of magazine covers, comix (Incognito, P.O.S.S.E.), murals and, most of all, freestyle graphix.
The year 1999 brought AAARCH!!! Comics their first Dutch comic with 'Kwaad Bloed' in the Incognito series. This was followed by Marcel's solo project 'Sadie - Love is Misery', the tragic story of a young gothic punk girl who lives through a psychosis in the eighties. De Jong and Kuipers continued their collaboration with 'Die Seelen Dämmerung' ('Als de duisternis...), in 2001.
While Kuipers has continued to work under the AAARCH!!! label, De Jong is nowadays mostly active with making music videos and illustrations. In 2003, he published the comic album 'Als de Duisternis...' with publisher Silvester (script by Onno Peerlings and Martin Sprissler). Remarkable for their detailed and romantic counterculture images, the AAARCH!!! team builds on the Dutch underground comix tradition, most notably the work of its godfather, Peter Pontiac.
