Quark #1
Adri van Kooten was born in Ridderkerk, the Netherlands. He started out working for an advertising agency in the early 1980s, before he entered the comics field through Martin Lodewijk. He illustrated one of Lodewijk's scripts with the character 'De Kat', called 'De Kat in Kitzbühel'. He then became one of the driving forces behind the amateur magazine Yéch, together with Willem Ritstier, Minck Oosterveer and Caren Peeters.
In this magazine, he first used the pseudonym Victor Zilverberg, impersonating a fictional illustrator who worked in the "atomic style", inspired by Serge Clerc and Yves Chaland. He created 'Miss Purpleheart' and subsequently used the signature for a couple of advertising assignments and his illustration work for publisher Helemaal Hopeloos. As Zilverberg, he has worked together with Age Morris (Maurice Heuts) on several occasions. They have released the cartoon collections 'Blonde Bekentenissen' and 'Goeroezemoes', and completed a successful crowdfunding campaign for their fullcolor comic 'Splinter' in 2015.
Miss Purpleheart by Victor Zilverberg
Between 1998 and 2000, he made a couple of short stories for Zone 5300 with Pieter van Oudheusden. These, completed with some new ones, were collected in the album 'De Laatste Engel' by Bee Dee in 2002. A second collaboration with Van Oudheusden resulted in the album 'Spertijd' in 2006. In 2003 and 2004 he worked with Martin Lodewijk once again on the Dutch manga 'Quark' for SAF/Prestige. Van Kooten and Ritstier released their manga comic 'Winth' through BeeDee in 2008.
With Boy Akkerman, Age Morris, Erwin Suvaal, Jules Calis, Ulrik Art and West Givner, he forms "De Rotterdamse 7" ("The Rotterdam 7"), a group of Rotterdam-based artists who publish the quarterly comic magazine Hollandsch Metaal since October 2016.
De Laatste Engel