'Fleurtje', drawn by Joanika and Börge Ring (Tina #8, 22 February 1974).
Joanika Ring is a Dutch sculptor and painter, and the second wife of Danish animator Børge Ring. Together with her husband, she drew the children's comic series 'Distel' (1970-1974), 'Fleurtje' (1972-1974) and 'Kobus en Kachelmans' (1973-1974). During the same decade, she also inked various Disney comics for the Dutch Disney weekly Donald Duck.
Early life and career
She was born as Joanika Zwart in 1946 in the Dutch town Laren, in the province of North Holland. Her father was sculptor, painter and TV pioneer Peter Zwart (1911-2000), who went down in history as the first set designer for Dutch television. One of her early childhood memories was Walt Disney visiting the family home in 1951. The entertainment legend was impressed by her father's designs for puppet films and offered him a job. But Zwart turned Disney down and stayed with his family in the Netherlands. Joanika followed in her father's footsteps, and at age 19 she worked as an illustrator in the Amsterdam division of the American advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.
Toonder Studios
In the 1960s, Joanika Zwart worked as a freelance artist for the Marten Toonder Studios in the castle of Nederhorst den Bergh, where one of Toonder's most prominent scriptwriters, Lo Hartog van Banda, introduced her to Børge Ring, a Dane working in their animation division. According to Ring's autobiography, around Christmas 1969 the two worked together on a comic strip and by May 1970 they were married. At Toonder, Joanika participated in sketching gag pages with the anthropomorphic cat 'Pelle Svanslös' (a creation of Gösta Knutsson) for Semic Press in Sweden. Patty Klein was the main scriptwriter.
Freelance comics work
In 1973, Joanika encouraged her husband to become a freelancer, so he could choose his own projects. Besides animated shorts, these also included several comics for the children's magazines of the VNU publishing group. Joanika served as either inker, letterer and colorist on most of these productions. For the Dutch children's comic magazine Sjors, they made the fantasy comic 'Distel' (1970-1974, scripted by Lo Hartog van Banda and Patty Klein) and the slapstick humor comic 'Kobus en Kachelmans' (1973-1974, scripts by Piet Hein Broenland). For girls' magazine Tina, they drew the back cover gag strip with madcap office girl 'Fleurtje' (1972-1974, scripts by Patty Klein). For 'Kobus en Kachelmans' and 'Fleurtje', Joanika additionally took care of most of the backgrounds, while her smooth inking line also turned out useful for the Dutch production of Disney stories. In the period 1973-1980, she inked pencil art by former Toonder colleagues Ed van Schuijlenburg and Frits Godhelp for stories with characters such as 'Brer Rabbit' and 'Little Hiawatha'. Additionally, she also helped her husband Børge Ring with his Disney stories. When the original artwork for the Carl Barks story 'Sheriff of Bullet Valley' wasn't available for a Dutch publication and translation in 1976, Joanika Ring re-inked the pages.
Other artistic activities and spiritualism
Outside of Ring's comic career, her main activities have always been sculpting and painting. She also delved into spiritual studies, especially about non-dualism in the Advaita Vedanta. She is the author of several books about self-realization, self-published under the label Uitgeverij AdvaitaRing. Ring additionally organized training sessions in Advaita Vedanta and held Satsang group meetings.
Since 1988, Joanika and Børge Ring have lived in a farmhouse in the Brabant town of Overlangel. Tragedy struck in 2012, when the house went up in flames, taking all their belongings with it, including their artistic legacy. The pair found refuge in Joanika's atelier, while their daughter Anne-Mieke launched a crowdfunding campaign to finance the rebuilding of the home. Joanika and Anne-Mieke's redesign of the farm's interior was documented in an episode of the KRO-NCRV TV show 'BinnensteBuiten', broadcast on 3 March 2016. In late 2018, Joanika's beloved husband Børge passed away.
'Donald Duck' story by Börge and Joanika Ring (Donald Duck weekly #12, 20 March 1981).