'Er Zij Licht' (De Vrije Balloen #9, 1977).
Hans Pieko was a Dutch illustrator and designer, best-known for his illustration work for science fiction and fantasy books. During the 1970s and early 1980s, he created a few comic stories for magazines like De Vrije Balloen, Gummi and Krypton.
Early life and career
Born in 1943 in Amsterdam, Hans Pieko studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Arnhem. During his professional life, he has worked in several artistic disciplines, making murals, puppets for museums and theater props. Most of the time, however, he was an illustrator, and occasionally also tried his hand at comics, often in collaboration with his friend Hendrik J. Vos. Important influences on his work were Moebius, Richard Corben and Bernie Wrightston.
'Afscheid' (Gummi #9, 1978).
Comics
In the second half of the 1970s, Pieko had some of his sci-fi and fantasy comic stories published in the alternative comic magazines De Vrije Balloen (one in issue #8, two in #9) and Gummi (issue #9). His cover art appeared on Gummi issue #6 and on issue #6 of Raymond Donkersloot's sci-fi magazine Essef. In 1979, he also created a comic story in the style of science fiction writer Ray Bradbury for issue #5 of the literary art magazine Glamoer, edited by Mat Heffels.
From a script by Theo van den Boogaard, the team of Hans Pieko and Hendrik J. Vos drew a 13-page comic story about 17th-century poet Joost van den Vondel, who is transported to our time. The story was created on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Vondel's death, and printed in the special catalogue accompanying an exposition at the Theater Museum in Amsterdam ('Vondel en Amsterdam', Espee, 1979). Also in 1979, Pieko and Vos initiated a comic project for the Filmweek festival in Arnhem. Every day, two large panels were revealed in the hall of the Rembrandt Theater, in which Arnhem mayor Hans Roelen and Head of Cultural Affairs Herman Hofman end up in scenes from famous movies. Pieko and Vos wrote and drew the story, aided by graphic artist Rinus Smit for the dialogue and by Frans Jongmans and Ben Bodt for reproducing the Pieko-Vos designs on the panels. The drawings were also printed in the local newspaper De Nieuwe Krant.
'Krypton'.
In 1981, Hans Pieko and Hendrik J. Vos created four issues of the bi-monthly science fiction magazine Krypton, published by Yendor in Rotterdam. Besides comics and illustrations by Pieko and Vos themselves, Krypton featured contributions by Bert Doesburg, Kees Smit and Bruno Visser.
Cover art for the Prisma Pockets series (1984, 1985), namely Walter Tevis' 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' and Roger A. Zelazny's 'Eye of Cat'.
Sci-fi illustrator
By the late 1970s, Hans Pieko had become a prominent cover painter for Dutch editions of science fiction novels. He worked extensively for the publishing house Het Spectrum and its Prisma Pockets series, and more sporadically for Luitingh-Sijthoff, De Arbeiderspers and A.W. Bruna. During the early 1990s, Hans Pieko and Hendrik J. Vos joined the final incarnation of Studio Arnhem, a former comics collective of which Ben Jansen was the only original member left. There, Pieko met fellow illustrator Ronald van Vemden, with whom he later formed the illustrator duo Pieko & Van Vemden. Together, they worked on book illustrations, advertising art and a remarkable project for the Dutch Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, where they cast people in plaster to make realistic dolls. Initially, Pieko made his illustrations with the airbrush technique, but he eventually switched to digital drawing under the banner Wetbyte Illustrations.
Death
Hans Pieko died in Arnhem in 2025, at the age of 81.
Hans Pieko in 1979. (Source: Gelders Archief: 1544 - 4876-0001, Gerth van Roden, CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0 licence).