'Ton en Tonneke' (March 2025).
Wout Paulussen is a Dutch freelance illustrator and comic artist, based in Sittard. His artwork has appeared in staff magazines, newspapers, presentations, and especially greeting cards. Starting in the small press comics scene of the 1980s, his first mainstream comic was 'Heleentje' (1985-1991), which ran in the girls' magazine Tina. Since then, Paulussen has drawn comics like 'Max en Mummie' for Veronica Magazine (1995-1997), 'Jan Kaman' for Voetbal Totaal (2001-2005) and 'Ton en Tonneke' in the free regional newspaper MijnGazet (2020- ).
Early life and career
Wout Paulussen was born in 1961 in Breda, and grew up with a passion for reading. In a 1993 article in Incognito magazine, he expressed his admiration for Roald Dahl, Steven Spielberg, André Franquin, Walt Disney and Ever Meulen. Later in life, he has cited Luc Verschuuren, Ben Jansen and Harald Siepermann as important influences on his work. Between 1980 and 1983, Paulussen attended St. Lucas in Boxtel, studying advertising. During this period, he also made a comic strip for a free weekly newspaper in the Tilburg region, and with its editor Paul Spapens, he created his first comic book, 'Nilles en Kiske: De spookstad Tilburg' (1982), printed by the Gianotten bookstore.
Sweetij - 'De Vloek van de Hudonisteen' (Coyote #2, 1983).
In his third year at St. Lucas, Paulussen had a four-month apprenticeship at Studio Arnhem, the comic studio run by Hanco Kolk, Aloys Oosterwijk, René Meulenbroek, Evert Geradts and Ben Jansen. Around this time, he was also contributing his first comic stories to several amateur comic magazines, including Fenomeen (1982), Coyote (1983-1985), TNT (1983), Striprofiel (1984), Yèch (1985) and Zwijmel (1985). A couple of years later, he also appeared in the small press magazines Gag (edited by Aad Duineveld, 1989), Fresco (edited by Stefan Nieuwenhuis, 1990-1992) and Incognito (edited by Robin Schouten, 1993).
'Heleentje' (Tina, 1985).
Comics
Working as a professional cartoonist and illustrator since 1983, Wout Paulussen first ventured into mainstream comics at the Oberon children's magazines. Between 1984 and 1987, he drew three short stories with Walt Disney's 'Bucky Bug' for the Dutch Donald Duck weekly. With 136 episodes of his own creation 'Heleentje' (1985-1991), a family gag comic about a quickwitted little girl, he was a regular contributor to the girls' magazine Tina. For the youth magazine Pauze, distributed freely at high schools by Pauze Media Exploitatie, Paulussen created the comic 'Bolletje & Co' (1988-1989).
'Max & Mummie' (1995).
In 1995, Wout Paulussen and Dick Briel succeeded Steven Dupré and Ruud den Drijver as, respectively, artist and writer of 'Max & Mummie' (1995-1996), a comic set in a horror amusement park, published in Veronica Magazine. In 2000, their episode 'Wereldwonderen' was collected in book format by Bee Dee. Together with Dutch entertainer Herman van Veen, Paulussen created the football comic 'Jan Kaman', starring a young soccer player with a Dutch mother and Turkish father. Starting in 2001, the comic appeared in Voetbal Totaal and its successor De Bal, the members' magazine of the Dutch soccer association KNVB. In 2005, Paulussen was succeeded as artist by Wilma van den Bosch, who made the comic with writer Jan Bart Dieperink for another two years.
In 2020, the free bi-weekly local newspaper MijnGazet was launched in Sittard, to which Wout Paulussen has contributed the comic strip 'Ton en Tonneke' (2020- ). Through the characters of two enforcement officers, Paulussen has used his comic strip to comment on the local news. The comic's name is a tribute to 'Ton en Tineke', the Dutch title of André Franquin's classic 'Modeste et Pompon' comic. In 2025, a first landscape-format book collection was released. For the monthly regional newspaper FFniks, he has additionally created the 'Flip & Floortje' cartoon panel (2024- ).
As a comic creator, Wout Paulussen has been a mentor to young artists like Scott Wenmakers and Maarten Janssens. With the latter, he made 'Funs en Finke in Sittard: 750 Jaar Stad', a 1993 comic book on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of the city of Sittard.
'Jan Kaman' (2001).
Commercial artist
Based in the southern city of Sittard, Wout Paulussen has been mainly active as a commercial artist. His assignments have included character designs for advertising campaigns and corporate mascots, murals as well as cartoons and illustrations for newspapers and magazines. Since the mid-1980s, an important part of Paulussen's workload has been creating greetings cards for Paperclip International, making about 2,000 cards over the next decades. For the comedian Herman van Veen he designed the character of 'BB de Beer', a giant teddy bear from outer space. During the 1990s, Van Veen used the character in his stage shows, as well as a short-lived 1993 television series. Other notable characters created by Wout Paulussen were 'Prins & Ploes' for Prins petfoods, which have appeared in both drawn and puppet versions in TV clips, a 2006 musical, merchandising, coloring pictures, a board game, comics and a reading book.
'Prins en Ploes' strip.
Paulussen's comics and cartoons have appeared in the newspapers Algemeen Dagblad and Dagblad de Limburger, QUATRO magazine and several staff magazines. In addition, he has been active as a live cartoonist. Among his other clients have been the municipality of Sittard, as well as several hospitals and local entrepreneurs from the Limburg region. In 2009, he teamed up with his former editor Paul Spapens again for a comic book aimed at promoting local entrepreneurs in the town of Hilvarenbeek. An avid cyclist, Spapens opted for a pastor who travels through town by bike to get to know his new parish. Working in collaboration with co-scriptwriter Jan Smeets, Paulussen created the resulting comic book 'Pastoor Hilvermans en de Drie Schijnheiligen', which was published under the Pix4profs imprint.
'Pastoor Hilvermans en de Drie Schijnheiligen' (2009).
Graphic contributions
In 1985, Wout Paulussen was one of the cartoonists whose work was featured in the book 'Kollaazje', a collection of comics from Coyote magazine. In later years, he has contributed comic stories to Margreet de Heer's fairy tale anthology 'Sprookjes in Strookjes' (Senoeni, 2006), Menno Kooistra and Maarten Janssens' collective horror comic 'Bloeddorst' (Bee Dee, 2007) and the Dutch manga collection 'Oost West' (Bee Dee, 2009).
Wout Paulussen in 2024 with his Flip & Floortje characters.