Sam en Simone
René Leisink is a comic artist and cartoonist from Nijmegen and one of the founding members of Studio Noodweer. Having drawn comics since an early age, he studied to become a drawing teacher. After being one of the editors of the comic fanzine De Stripper, he founded Noodweer together with Rob Derks, Jan Dirk Barreveld, Koert Stavenuiter and Michiel van de Vijver. His comic strips have been published in the free dailies Metro ('Paul Flekx', 'Ted') and Sp!ts ('Distelhof'), and also in his first album 'Waterproef', which he made together with Michiel van de Vijver and was published in the Spring of 2003.
He has done illustrations for schoolbooks like 't Klopt' and 'Lang Zullen Ze Lezen', and also for magazines like De Actuaris, the literary magazine Koud Bloed and the municipality of Amersfoort. For the magazine Horeca Nederland, he created the comic 'Fons en Fiona De Koning', and his comic 'Sam en Simone' was published in the Unicef magazine Kids United for nearly ten years. He writes the dark comics serial 'Amorfati', which is illustrated by his studio colleagues, for comic magazine Eppo.
Mijn Stad (Razzafrazz, 2005)
Leisink is best known for the current affairs cartoons which he makes under the pen name Argus. He first published them on his website, and they have since appeared in papers like the Sunday edition of Tubantia, De Pers (2007-2012) and Metro (2012-), and in comic magazine Eppo. The first book collection appeared in 2004. Argus' absurd and optimistic cartoons earned him the Junior Inktspotprijs in 2009 and in 2012.
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.
Argus cartoon