'Kobus Kuch' (Leeuwarder Courant, 21 November 1970).
Piet Rodenhuis was a Frisian cartoonist and graphic designer, whose topical cartoons appeared on the front page of the Friese Koerier and then the Leeuwarder Courant between 1966 and 1984. In addition to his day job at the graphic art studio of the Leeuwarder Courant, he also created the comic gag strip 'Kobus Kuch' (1970-1975).
Early life
Pieter Pieter Adrianus Rodenhuis was born in 1923 in the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden. His grandfather Rintje Rodenhuis (1850-1945) had for many years been a hand typesetter with the Leeuwarder Courant, and his father Ale Rodenhuis (1886-1950) had this same profession with the Eisma printing firm. Father Rodenhuis was also a prominent member of the Dutch typographer's union, and a talented amateur painter.
Leeuwarder Courant
On 12 September 1938, Rodenhuis followed in his father's footsteps and was hired as a hand typographer by the Leeuwarder Courant. In the evenings, he took a correspondence art course from the Amsterdamse Tekenschool. Rodenhuis remained with the paper's publisher for 46 years, with the exception of a couple of years during World War II, when Rodenhuis was in hiding to avoid being sent to Nazi Germany for forced labor.
Advertisement with art and design by Piet Rodenhuis (Leeuwarder Courant, 7 February 1968).
After the Liberation of The Netherlands in 1945, Rodenhuis returned to the Leeuwarder Courant, while the paper also financed his further graphic education at the Arts and Crafts School in Leeuwarden. Rodenhuis eventually worked his way up to the paper's graphic department, where he made the layouts for the news pages, designed book covers and was a graphic artist for advertisements. In 1952, the Leeuwarder Courant also ran his first comic strip, 'Gekko de Gans'. On the side, he was active as a live cartoonist in small theaters, under the name Roxi.
Front page cartoons for the Leeuwarder Courant of 25 October 1969 and 23 June 1977.
Cartoonist
In the mid-1950s, Rodenhuis made the switch to the graphic department of the Friese Koerier, another regional newspaper printed by the same company. With support from chief editor Laurens ten Cate, Rodenhuis also tried his hand at cartooning. Starting on 4 January 1966, he made a small topical cartoon for the newspaper's front page. When in 1969, the Friese Koerier was merged with the Leeuwarder Courant, Rodenhuis was back at his old homebase, where he continued his daily cartoon until his retirement on 8 June 1984. Between 19 September 1970 and 31 May 1975, the Leeuwarder Courant's Saturday edition also ran Rodenhuis' gag strip 'Kobus Kuch', about a rebellious, philosophical and also hypocritical hippie. A booklet called 'Grappen en Grollen van Kobus Kuch' was announced in the Leeuwarder Courant of 10 March 1973, but it is unknown if it actually appeared.
'Kobus Kuch' (Leeuwarder Courant, 15 January 1972).
Further life and death
As side projects, Piet Rodenhuis has also lent his graphic talents to the weekly skippers' magazine Schuttevaer, school books of the publisher Born from Assen and an instruction film for the Philips factories. He has also served as chairman of the Leeuwarden division of the General Dutch Graphic Association. After his retirement from the newspaper at age 61, Rodenhuis picked up his old hobby, painting. Pieter Adrianus Rodenhuis died in Leeuwarden in 2001, at the age of 78.
Piet Rodenhuis, portrayed in Leeuwarder Courant of 11 September 1978 in honor of his 40 years of service.