'Neef IJsco en het Geheim van de Dorstvogel' (1977).
Martijn Reeser is a Dutch art teacher, graphic designer, illustrator, photographer and writer. He has been mostly active for humanitarian projects, providing designs, reports and photographs for Unicef and Cebemo. For over 25 years, he worked for the educational, multicultural children's magazine Samsam as a writer, comic artist and photographer. Reeser drew socially conscious comics like 'Daantje Driekleur' and 'Pim'. Reeser was additionally the cartoonist of the educational comic book 'Neef IJsco en het Geheim van de Dorstvogel' (1977), written by Hans Auer.
Early life
Martijn Reeser was born in 1944 in The Hague. In 1967, he was involved as a set designer with the experimental play 'Batman in Ballingschap', produced by Studio Scarabee and performed at the Haagse Kunstkring. Reeser studied Graphic and Typographic Design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of The Hague, where he graduated in 1971 (and later became a Photography teacher at the same university). Also in 1971, Reeser won a contest among Art Academy students with a poster design for the Foundation Dutch Volunteers ("Stichting Nederlandse Vrijwilligers"). It was the first of many occasions that he used his craft for socially conscious work.
'Pim & Pien' (Samsam #3, 1986).
Samsam
For many years, Martijn Reeser was a contributor to the educational children's magazine Samsam. The title was founded in 1975 by Bob van Opzeeland and a couple of students from the Utrecht School for Journalism. Its title was derived from a Dutch expression which means "fifty-fifty". The monthly magazine focused on other countries and cultures, mostly from developing countries, providing readers a multicultural view of the world. Reeser wrote articles, made photographic travel reports and drew comics. Samsam later released books with Reeser's travel reports to Burkina Faso ('Het Pakje (Deel 1)'), Angola ('Het Pakje (Deel 2)') and the Dutch Antilles ('Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius en Sint Maarten'). Some of these books also reprinted some of the comics he had created for Samsam.
In 1983, Reeser created the magazine's back cover comic strip, 'Daantje Driekleur', about a young, blonde, socially conscious boy. In each episode, Daantje brings the reader's attention to a world problem, like famine, discrimination, poverty, natural disasters and the enduring negative consequences of colonialism. In the mid-1980s, Reeser created another comic, 'Pim & Pien', about a nurse and her talking grey dog. Besides running on the last page of each issue, the Pim character also appeared on the magazine's readers section. In each episode, Pim answers a reader's letter, complete with a photo of the young boy or girl who sent it. The answer is told in the form of a moralistic narrative. Sometimes Pim shows the history behind a certain issue, or confronts an ignorant person with background information. Other artists who over the years have made comics, cartoons and/or illustrations for Samsam have been Carry Brugman, Jeroen de Leijer, Eric Heuvel, Wim Hoogerdijk, Rob Phielix, Willem Ritstier and Bas Schuddeboom.
'Neef IJsco en het Geheim van de Dorstvogel' (1977).
Neef IJsco and other comics
In 1977, the comic book 'Neef IJsco en het Geheim van de Dorstvogel' (Ploegsma, 1977) was published in collaboration with the educational TV network Teleac and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Overseas Development. The book was written by Hans Auer, at the time chief editor of Panorama magazine, with Reeser providing the artwork. The story follows a Western businessman who produces edible nuts in Africa, but at the expense of the local laborers. One day a special nut gives all the white Western businesspeople a black skin color, which causes a lot of misunderstanding and mayhem. In the end, the white people finally realize what it's like to be discriminated against and exploited by the West. In 1981, Martijn Reeser's comic strip 'Sonja, Dat Meisje van de Huishoudschool' ("Sonja, That Girl from Home Economics School") appeared in the books section of the opinion magazine Vrij Nederland.
'Sonja, Dat Meisje van de Huishoudschool'.
Software
After living in The Hague for many years, in the early 2000s, Reeser and his wife Annelies Heldoorn eventually moved to Koekange in the Dutch province of Drenthe. Since his retirement as teacher, Reeser and Heldoorn, a former pre-vocational secondary school teacher, have been active developing software for educational purposes through their Kleurrijk Leren foundation. Their releases include the CD-ROMs 'Een Eerste Kennismaking met de Republiek Suriname' ("A First Introduction to the Republic of Suriname", 2003) and 'Kleurrijk Leren Over De Antillen' ("Colorful Learning About the Antilles", 2005), providing youngsters with a first introduction to Suriname and the Dutch Antilles.
Exhibitions
In September 1991, the Gallery Goethe Institute in Amsterdam ran an exposition with Martijn Reeser photographs from the former DDR. Between 2 December 2013 and 3 February 2014, the town of Zuidwolde organized a photo exhibition featuring pictures by Reeser from countries like Burkina Faso, Suriname, Italy, Portugal, Bangladesh, West Germany, East Germany, Nepal, Ecuador and Russia.
Article about Martijn Reeser's poster design for the Foundation Dutch Volunteers (AD, 18 March 1971).