'Verse Vracht' (2021), comic strip for distribution company Levarht by Studio Blokbik (Bas Schuddeboom & Esther Holtkamp).
Bas Schuddeboom is a Dutch comic editor, translator and writer for the children's magazines published by DPG Media (prior to 2020 Sanoma) in the Netherlands, including the Dutch Disney titles and the girls' magazine Tina. Since 2002, he has written stories and gags with Donald Duck and other characters for the Dutch Disney titles, as well as scripts for 'Professor Breinstein' (drawn by Studio Comicup, 2013) on the back page of the popular science monthly Zo Zit Dat. For Tina, Schuddeboom has plotted gags and stories with 'Karlijn, Catootje en de Ouders' (2011-2015), 'Tina' (2013-2018) and 'Nick & Simon' (2010-2013) - all with artwork by Studio Comicup - before creating his own gag strip 'Nena's Vlog' with Dorith Graef (2019- ). Under the Studio Blokbik banner, he works with Esther Holtkamp on comic strips for staff magazines, such as 'Krijn Zwaan' (2018- ) for vegetable breeding company Rijk Zwaan, and 'Verse Vracht' (2021-2022) for vegetable and fruit distributor Levarht. Since 2001, Bas Schuddeboom is also the editor of Kees Kousemaker's Comiclopedia, presenting biographies of over 14,000 international comic artists on the website of the Amsterdam comic shop Lambiek.
Early life
Bas Schuddeboom was born in 1980 in Zaandam, in the province North Holland, not far from Amsterdam, where he still lives. The son of a divorced bookkeeper and primary school teacher, he grew up reading and collecting all the comics released by Dupuis, the Belgian publisher of comic magazine Robbedoes (Spirou). The magazine's playful humor and overall fun atmosphere is rooted in Schuddeboom's own comics, with his main influences being André Franquin, Peyo, Will, Tome & Janry, Maurice Tillieux and Raoul Cauvin. An important part of his "comic education" was the Teleac TV course 'Strip & Cartoon Tekenen' (1992), hosted by Peter de Wit and Hanco Kolk, with the accompanying guide book by Jesse van Muylwijck and Frans Le Roux. Other influences on his humor are the Dutch satirical TV duo Van Kooten & De Bie, comedian Herman Finkers, the light verse poet Drs. P and the British comedy group Monty Python. During his working life, important inspirations have been Carl Barks for his Disney comics and the out-of-the-box approach to comic creation of Tina artist Jan Vriends.
As a teenager, Schuddeboom made cartoons for his high school newspaper, signing them with "Moi" because of his preference for Franco-Belgian comics. Between 1996 and 2005, he also made drawings for the homeowners' magazine of holiday park Sunclass Grand-Han, near Durbuy in the Belgian Ardennes, where his father owned a bungalow. During his studies in Media and Information Management at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (1999-2003), Schuddeboom was a student intern at the Amsterdam-based comic shop Lambiek (2001) and the editorial offices of the Dutch Donald Duck weekly at Sanoma in Hoofddorp (2002). He has remained affiliated with both companies since then.
Party store owner Ome Dries was created by Bas Schuddeboom for donaldduck.nl, and the character later appeared in several comic stories (Hockey.nl #6, 2011, artwork by Maximino Tortajada Aguilar) - © Disney.
Donald Duck web editor
After his internship and a period of freelancing, Schuddeboom was hired as the original web editor of Donald Duck's official website in the Netherlands, donaldduck.nl. Between 2004 and 2012, he was responsible for all online activities related to Donald Duck weekly. This included translating the humor and atmosphere of the weekly for online purposes. With fellow editor Jim van der Weele, he conceived a great many spoof advertisements from fictional Duckburg shops, TV guides, character diaries and news articles related to the Duckburg news of the day. New characters saw the light in these features too, including party store owner Ome Dries (visually based on Carl Barks' "Pig Journalist") and electronics specialist Dirk Snoerboer - because of limited online budget based on existing artwork from Carl Barks stories - as well as the travel agent Isabelle Jambon and bicycle store owner Peter van der Gaap, both visually created by in-house artist Jan-Roman Pikula.
In February 2010, Schuddeboom and his fellow editors Jim van der Weele, Jos Beekman and Ferdi Felderhof began having conversations as the Disney characters on the Twitter platform. Within no time, the initiative gained a wide following, and received a lot of press coverage by Dutch media, marking the launch of Donald Duck weekly's widely praised social media activities. Schuddeboom and Beekman were also involved in the concepts and development of the online typing course DuckTypen (launched in 2014) and the educational game world DuckWorld Adventures (launched in 2015).
The Donald Duck Twitter team in 2011: Bas Schuddeboom, Ferdi Felderhof, Jos Beekman, Jim van der Weele (Het Parool, 19 March 2011, photo: Dingema Mol).
Disney comic editor and writer
In 2012, when Esther Holtkamp became the new Donald Duck web editor, Schuddeboom was appointed as general comic editor and translator for all Sanoma's Disney-related magazines, including Donald Duck, Donald Duck Extra, Disney XD Magazine and Minnie & Katrien. Since by then all the company's non-Disney children's magazines were added to the department's portfolio, he also worked for Nickelodeon Magazine and, most notably, the girls' magazine Tina. Ever since his 2002 apprenticeship, Schuddeboom had been writing comic stories for the Donald Duck weekly. Much of his training in scriptwriting came from editor-in-chief Thom Roep and senior editor Jos Beekman. His first effort was the activity comic story related to the weekly's 50th anniversary in 2002, written in collaboration Jim van der Weele and drawn by in-house artist Maarten Janssens.
Donald Duck - 'De Pechvogelkampioen' (Donald Duck 48, 2014). Script by Bas Schuddeboom; Finished page by Mau Heymans - © Disney.
Since then, Schuddeboom has continued to write occasional comic stories, often with the Duck family, but also with his personal favorites 'Madam Mim', 'Br'er Rabbit' and 'Basil from Baker Street'. Notable was the Donald Duck story 'De Pechvogelkampioen' (2014) with artwork by Mau Heymans, that was part of an online contest with fan participation in the story's progress. In addition, Schuddeboom has written a great many thematic gag strips for the magazine's mail section and installments of the Mickey Mouse riddle comic 'Mickey Lost 't Op', either alone or in cooperation with his colleagues Jim van der Weele, Esther Holtkamp and Lotte Roep. With his fellow editors, he was also responsible for the original scriptwork of Donald Duck Junior, the junior edition of the weekly, launched in 2008. In alternation with Jos Beekman, Schuddeboom wrote the Dutch comic stories with Donald's superhero alter ego 'The Duck Avenger' ('Superdonald') for Disney XD Magazine in 2010-2011. In addition, he has written Disney stories for B2B purposes, including many parodies for TV guide Troskompas. Most of his scripts have been illustrated by artists affiliated by Studio Comicup, most notably his favorites Jordi Alfonso and Daniel Pérez.
Scene from one of the Donald Duck gags with crooked car salesman Jan Zwijner (Donald Duck Autospecial 2011, artwork by Jordi Alfonso) - © Disney.
Training new writers for the magazine since 2019, Schuddeboom has recruited the Tina authors Gerard Leever and Jan Vijver to write Disney comics, and brought in new talent like Jonathan van Engelenhoven, Jan-Jaap Schraverus and the duo Milo Cremer Eindhoven and Nik Heemskerk. He is also part of the magazine's local comic production team, established by chief editor Joan Lommen to keep the Dutch Disney comics "future proof". Also consisting of Jos Beekman, Frans Hasselaar and current chief editor Ferdi Felderhof, the team keeps a finger on the pulse of the changing times, while serving as contact persons for both the license owner, the Walt Disney Company, and the other European licensee of Disney comics, Egmont in Denmark. Promoted to senior editor in 2021, Schuddeboom additionally supervises the production of the daily Donald Duck strip for newspaper AD - written by Hugo Sauer and drawn by Tony Cronstam and Carmen Pérez - and set up a new comic feature based on Disney's classic 'Silly Symphony' short 'The Tortoise and the Hare' (2021), drawn initially by the Frenchman Thomas Cabellic. After writing the first few installments himself, he outsourced the writing of the feature to Jonathan van Engelenhoven.
Fragment from a Nick & Simon comic from Tina #42 of 2012, with artwork by Rafa Ruiz.
Tina comic editor and writer
In addition to his Disney work, Schuddeboom has been responsible for the comic content published in the girls' magazine Tina since 2012. Besides acquiring and translating licensed series from French and Belgian publishers, his job includes being the contact person of the magazine's own comic creators. During his tenure, Schuddeboom has been involved in the launch of new features like 'Tina' by Jan Vriends, 'Prinses Simone' by Robbert Damen, 'Lotta' by Marloes de Vries and 'Casa Kiki' by Margreet de Heer. It fills him with great pride to have been able to work with longtime Tina veterans Patty Klein and Jan Steeman - creators of the magazine's iconic 'Noortje' comic from 1975 - until health issues forced them to retire in the late 2010s. Even prior to his editorial work, Schuddeboom was involved with the magazine as a scriptwriter, scripting celebrity comic stories with Dutch folk singers Nick and Simon (2010-2013, artwork by either Carmen Pérez and Rafa Ruiz), and gags for 'Karlijn, Catootje en de Ouders' (2010-2015, drawn by Josep Nebot), Tina's juvenile spin-off of the family comic 'Jan, Jans en de Kinderen' from the women's weekly Libelle by Studio Jan Kruis.
Bas Schuddeboom at the Tina offices in 2017 with (future chief) editor Inge Derksen.
Since 2013, Schuddeboom has written many scripts with Tina's mascot character 'Tina'. The characters and initial plots were conceived by Jan Vriends, while the artwork was outsourced to Studio Comicup in Barcelona, specifically Carmen Pérez and her son Ruben Montoya. Apart from gags for the main series, Schuddeboom notably wrote 'Tina' episodes for seasonal books, specials and the mail section's weekly comic/cartoon (2013-2018), the latter drawn by Wilma van den Bosch. In 2017, Jan Vriends returned as the series' sole writer and artist. In 2018, Schuddeboom developed the concept for a comic about an aspiring but goofing vlogger girl, resulting in the monthly gag page 'Nena's Vlog' (2019- ), written by him and drawn by Dorith Graef. Some of hte later episodes were written in collaboration with Lotte Roep.
Scripts for 'Professor Breinstein'.
Zo Zit Dat
Between 2011 and 2017, Schuddeboom was also one of the main writers for 'Professor Breinstein' (2011), the back cover comic strip of Sanoma's popular science magazine Zo Zit Dat, drawn subsequently by Dany Fernandez, Sonia Álbert and Andrea Dotta of Studio Comicup. Since 2018, full production of the comic was handed to Roel Venderbosch and then Jordi Peters, with Schuddeboom providing occasional advice and plot ideas. With Dotta as artist, he notably made the comic installments for the special 'Zo Zit Dat Escape' game book (2019), written by Tess Dumitru.
The first episode of Krijn Zwaan'. Translation: Narrator: "It's good to be alert to suspicious mail..." Messages: "Krijn, can you mail me the list of orders? - Jaap." / "The notes are added as a PDF in the attachment. - Bas" / "Look at the results of the illness test. - Marjan." Krijn: "HA! YOU WON'T FOOL ME WITH YOUR PHISHING MAIL!" Narrator: "... but don't exaggerate it!" Mole: "Does Krijn still work here?" Bird: "I don't know. I never hear from him anymore..."
Studio Blokbik
In 2017, a major Sanoma reorganisation caused the discharge of Donald Duck's web editor Esther Holtkamp. Desiring to continue their collaboration, Schuddeboom and Holtkamp created "Studio Blokbik", a banner to work together on new comic projects, with its name derived from the Whatsapp chatgroup of the Disney editors. The first Studio Blokbik production was the funny animal strip 'Krijn Zwaan' (2018- ) in Intermezzo, the quarterly staff magazine of vegetable breeding company Rijk Zwaan (of which Holtkamp's husband is an employee). In late 2019, they created a short-lived comic strip for the Dutch Royal Library (KB), called 'Karel en Bea' (2019), followed in 2021 by 'Verse Vracht' (2021-2022), a comic strip with talking fruit and vegetables for distribution company Levarht. After plotting the gags together, Schuddeboom provides the artwork, while Holtkamp does the coloring. On occasion, the Disney editors Lotte Roep, Ferdi Felderhof, Jos Beekman and Jim van der Weele have helped with gag ideas or fill-in coloring chores.
Bas Schuddeboom and Kees Kousemaker working on the Comiclopedia at Lambiek's storage location at the Utrechtse Dwarsstraat in 2004.
Lambiek Comiclopedia
In addition to his daytime job, Schuddeboom oversees the renowned Comiclopedia, the online encyclopedia of comic creators worldwide, published on the website of comic shop Lambiek in Amsterdam. Since 2001, he has written thousands of new articles for the site, and rewritten even more. The project was launched in late 1999 by Lambiek founder and overall comic promotor Kees Kousemaker. Kousemaker's initial goal was making an online style sample sheet of the 2,000 most important comic authors, accompanied by a short biography. This amount was quickly surpassed, with the 14,000th entry added in December 2020. By then, the encyclopedia has grown into one of the largest online resources about comic authors. During his first years with Lambiek, Schuddeboom worked alongside fellow editor Margreet de Heer and a couple of interns. After De Heer left the project to focus on a full-time career as a comic creator, he wrote most of the website's content on his own. This not only included the English-language biographies of international authors, but also additions and expansions of the Dutch-language section about the history of Dutch comics, originally compiled in the early 2000s by Kousemaker and De Heer.
After gradually retiring from store activities in 2006, Kees Kousemaker intensified his personal involvement in the Comiclopedia, scanning large amounts of artwork and uncovering obscure and rare creators. Until Kousemaker's death, Schuddeboom and Kousemaker spent their Fridays in the Lambiek basement office filling the site with new content, while building on a profitable network of national and international comic experts. Other important sources of information were the artists themselves, or relatives of obscure comic authors from the past. After Kousemaker's death in 2010, Bas Schuddeboom has continued to expand the Comiclopedia in its founder's spirit with the support of Kees' son, and Lambiek's current owner, Boris Kousemaker. Since 2015, Bas Schuddeboom manages the site in steady collaboration with Kjell Knudde, a comic and pop culture connaisseur from Antwerp, Belgium. Over the years, they have been building on a qualitative improvement of the website - nicknamed the "New Deal" - presenting more extensive and analytical biographies of comic creators. Although Schuddeboom has a wide variety of interests, he takes care of most of the Franco-Belgian comic artists (especially those working for the Dupuis/Spirou publications), Disney comic artists and the Dutch comic authors. Much like his writing partner Kjell, he also has a fondness for peculiarities and comics from unexpected corners of the Earth.
Since May 2020, the Comiclopedia's original California-based proofreader Dan Schiff is back on board to work with Bas Schuddeboom on safeguarding the site's overall tone, style and focus by reviewing existing articles and establishing new guidelines. On the technical part, the Comiclopedia site has become more future proof as well. While the original blue design (1999-2012) was built in pure html code by American expat Rick Webb, the entire backlog of thousands of authors was imported into a database and connected to the new Lambiek webshop by web developer Dirk Zaal in cooperation with Schuddeboom.
Margreet de Heer, Bas Schuddeboom and Willard Mans trying to define what a graphic novel is, drawn by Margreet de Heer. From the introduction to 'Graphic Novels voor de Leeslijst' (Personalia, 2018).
Magazine articles and other projects
As a comic historian and focal point of the medium, Schuddeboom has been involved in several additional projects. In 2018, he worked with his former Lambiek colleague Margreet de Heer and Dutch literature high school teacher Willard Mans on a graphic novel guide for high school reading lists. The initiative was part of De Heer's mission as "Comic Artist Laureate of the Netherlands" to promote comics in the educational system. With the first guide receiving promotion by De Heer & Co at events as well as wide media attention, the team compiled a follow-up with newly released graphic novels at the end of De Heer's term as "Laureate" in late 2020.
With his keen interest in history and archiving, Schuddeboom digitized the vintage press clippings, video footage and photographs from the archives of the magazines Donald Duck and Tina, as well as comic shop Lambiek. Schuddeboom's digital Lambiek archive came in handy in 2018, when he was actively involved in the festivities regarding the store's 50th anniversary. Together with owner Boris Kousemaker and graphic designer Cyril Koopmeiners, he compiled a book with artwork related to the store, while delving into the shop's renowned history more thoroughly with his Comiclopedia companion Kjell Knudde. The result of Schuddeboom and Knudde's research was an extensive chronicle of 50 years of Lambiek, published on this website.
Over the years, Schuddeboom has written articles related to either Disney comics or the Lambiek comic shop for Donald Duck anniversary books or special interest magazines like Stripglossy, Stripnieuws, Ons Amsterdam and Praxisbulletin (a specialist journal for teachers). Since 2023, he has a regular column in Stripglossy detailing anecodes about his research for the Lambiek Comiclopedia. In addition, he assisted the journalist Joost Pollmann and the Museum Haarlem with a 2020-2021 exhibtion about the classic in-house artists of the publishing house De Spaarnestad, and he helped the researchers Theo Seesing, Sander Grip and Robert van der Kroft with compiling their overview book of comic strips and creators related to the city of Rotterdam (2021). In 2022, he joined Arie Korbee, Ger Apeldoorn and John Asselbergs in curating an overview exposition of 70 years of Donald Duck weekly in the Museum of Comic Art (MoCA) in the coastal town Noordwijk.
Recognition
On 2 October 2020, Bas Schuddeboom and Kjell Knudde received the P. Hans Frankfurther Prize for special merits by comic appreciation society Het Stripschap. They were praised for their ongoing efforts to keep Lambiek's Comiclopedia going and up-to-date, while the driving forces of the site's early years (Kees Kousemaker and Margreet de Heer) also received a special mention. Even though the award was announced in February, it took until October before the ceremony was held due to the COVID-19 pandemic measurements. The event took place in a stately hall of the Haarlem library, and was presented and hosted by the Comic Artist Laureate of the Netherlands, Margreet de Heer.
On 2 October 2020, Bas Schuddeboom and Kjell Knudde received the 2020 P. Hans Frankfurther Prize for special merits (from left to right: Margreet de Heer, Bas Schuddeboom, Kjell Knudde and Tamar Frankfurther, who handed out the award as representative of the Frankfurther family).