'Verse Vracht' (2021), comic strip for distribution company Levarht by Studio Blokbik (Bas Schuddeboom & Esther Holtkamp). The apples who are carried away are constantly complaining. The banana comments: "It's always a relief when the sour apples are brought to the supermarket."
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 (2004- ) and the girls' magazine Tina (2012-2024). 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, 2011-2017) 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- ). Since 2024, he has been writing and drawing the 'SamSam Dilemma' strip for the SamSam supplement of DPG's Kidsweek children's newspaper. In addition to his day job, he has been working with Esther Holtkamp on comic strips for staff magazines (2018-2023), as well as the children's picture book 'Schoentjes voor Sees' (2024). Since 2001, Bas Schuddeboom is also an editor of Kees Kousemaker's Comiclopedia, presenting biographies of over 14,000 international comic artists on the website of the Amsterdam comic shop Lambiek.
Bas Schuddeboom with a blow-up of the first Tina issue from 1967. Published alongside a 2024 interview with him about his work as a comic editor in StripGlossy #30/31. Photo © Peter Beemsterboer/Stripglossy.
Early life
Bas Schuddeboom was born in 1980 in Zaandam, in the province of 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, as well as Jack Hamm's ''Cartooning the Head and Figure'. Other influences on his humor and storytelling 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, as well as the campy and self-aware 1980s soap opera Santa Barbara. During his working life, important inspirations for Bas Schuddeboom have been Carl Barks and his direct patrons and colleagues Thom Roep, Kees Kousemaker, Margreet de Heer and Jos Beekman. Further later-day influences have been the gag strip humor of Mort Walker and Dik Browne, the ironic and grotesque storytelling of 1940s/1950s EC 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 the 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 the editorial 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 also 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 editorial 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: Dingena Mol).
Disney comic editor and writer
In 2012, when Esther Holtkamp became the new Donald Duck web editor, Bas Schuddeboom was appointed as general comic editor and translator for all of Sanoma's Disney-related magazines, including Donald Duck, Donald Duck Extra, Disney XD Magazine and Minnie & Katrien. By then, the company's non-Disney children's magazines were also added to the department's portfolio, so 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. His first effort was the activity comic story related to the weekly's 50th anniversary in 2002, written in collaboration with 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. Alternating with Jos Beekman, Schuddeboom wrote the Dutch comic stories with Donald's superhero alter ego 'The Duck Avenger' ('Superdonald') for Disney XD Magazine in the period 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 with 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.
Since the mid-2010s, Bas Schuddeboom has been 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, Lotte Roep, trafficker Karin Rookhuiszen 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. 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, Eva von Stockhausen and the duo Milo Cremer Eindhoven and Nik Heemskerk, among other people.
Promoted to senior editor in 2021, Schuddeboom has additionally supervised the production of the daily Donald Duck strip for newspaper AD - written by Hugo Sauer and drawn by Tony Cronstam and then Carmen Pérez - and set up a new comic feature based on Disney's classic 'Silly Symphony' short 'The Tortoise and the Hare' (2021), drawn by the Frenchman Thomas Cabellic. After writing the first few installments himself, he outsourced the writing of the latter 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 between 2012 and 2024. Besides acquiring and translating licensed series from French and Belgian publishers, his job included 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 Tina magazine as a writer, 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. (Photo: Willemijn Swarte)
Between 2013 and 2019, Bas Schuddeboom also wrote 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 weekly series, Schuddeboom notably wrote 'Tina' episodes for seasonal books, specials and the mail section's weekly cartoon/comic strip (2013-2018), the latter drawn by Wilma van den Bosch. In 2017, Jan Vriends returned to the feature as its sole writer and artist.
Nena's vlog
In 2018, Bas 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. A couple of episodes were written in collaboration with Lotte Roep. Initially a spoof on influencer culture, main character Nena gradually developed into a shy and clumsy girl, who can express herself by creating videos, without caring too much for likes or views. Her main inspiration is her grandfather, a retired documentary maker, while her nemesis is the bitchy and vain Katrijn-Kimberly, also known as Katy-Kim, the "influencer from class 3B". Companions and at times victims of Nena's enthusiastic film exploits are her naïve best friend Merel, her parents and her playful dog Aram.
Tina's talent scout
During his tenure with Tina magazine, Schuddeboom gradually dropped most of its "studio productions", where different writers and Spanish artists all work on one comic feature. Since Tina comics rely heavily on emotions and connecting with the reader, Schuddeboom felt the magazine's comic features would get more "soul" and personality if they were made by a single creator or a dedicated team. In 2022, Schuddeboom initiated Tina's comics talent project in order to connect new comic talent with the magazine. In the next two years, this resulted in new contributors in Tina's pages like Charlotte de Waal, Matia Heesakkers, Betje Ton, Lisa van Winsen, Emma Ringelding, Melanie Kranenburg, Kimberly Geelen, Nova de Hoo, Karin Blaauwijkel, Evi Nijs and Sjan Weijers, as well as work by more established names like Juliette de Wit, Alex van Koten and Jordi Peters. Schuddeboom's tenure with Tina ended in June 2024, when the magazine was bought from DPG by De Jonge Lezer, the publisher that also has girls' magazines like Penny and Meiden in its portfolio.
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 has been 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), with the editorial activity content 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..."
Collaborations with Esther Holtkamp
In 2017, a major Sanoma reorganization 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 text editors. The first Studio Blokbik production was the funny animal strip 'Krijn Zwaan' (2018-2023) in Intermezzo, the quarterly staff magazine of vegetable breeding company Rijk Zwaan, of which Holtkamp's husband was 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 other Disney editors Lotte Roep, Ferdi Felderhof, Jos Beekman and Jim van der Weele have helped with gag ideas or fill-in coloring chores.
Besides co-creating comic strips, Bas Schuddeboom has also provided occasional artwork for Esther Holtkamp's activities as "De Verteltante", during which she gives interactive reading sessions to young kids. This additional collaboration has resulted in the seasonal children's picture book 'Schoentjes voor Sees' (De Verteltante, 2024), in which a young girl called Keet and her puppy Sees go searching for doggy shoes to put in front of the fire place, so Sees can participate in the traditional Sinterklaas festivities.
Page from 'Schoentjes voor Sees' (2024), artwork by Bas Schuddeboom, coloring by Bas Schuddeboom.
SamSam Dilemma's
By mid-2024, Bas Schuddeboom had gained some experience in drawing comics himself through his Studio Blokbik projects. With his Tina work coming to an end, he was asked by the editors of DPG's children's paper Kidsweek to create a new comic strip for its monthly supplement about citizenship, SamSam. Taking care of the writing, drawing and coloring himself, the first episode of the 'SamSam Dilemma' strip (2024-2025) appeared in week #36 of 2024. Each episode offers two absurd dilemma options for readers to pick from, related to the social theme of the issue at hand. For coming up with the ideas, Schuddeboom was aided by his Duck colleagues Jim van der Weele and Lotte Roep, while his artist friends Alex van Koten and Robbert Damen have helped him with drawing and coloring techniques. The feature continued until the SamSam supplement came to an end in mid-2025. In his ninth and final dilemma strip, Schuddeboom subtly paid tribute to the previous comic creators from SamSam's 50 year history, subsequently Martijn Reeser, Willem Ritstier & Rob Phielix/Carry Brugman, Eric Heuvel and Jeroen de Leijer.
Fashion-themed 'SamSam Dilemma' strip from week #49 of 2024.
Additional scriptwork
On occasion, Bas Schuddeboom has ghostwritten episodes of the Tina comics 'Noortje' by Patty Klein and Jan Steeman, as well as 'Lotta' by Marloes de Vries. For publisher Billy Bones, he also wrote short stories and gags for a 2025 activity book and a tear-off calendar related to the YouTube stars 'Rutger, Thomas & Paco', which were drawn by Sabine van der Stadt.
Lambiek Comiclopedia
In addition to his daytime job, Schuddeboom has overseen the renowned Comiclopedia, the online encyclopedia of comic creators worldwide, published on the website of comic shop Lambiek in Amsterdam. Since his 2001 internship, 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 promoter Kees Kousemaker. Kousemaker's initial goal was making an online style sample sheet of 2,000 of the world's 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 had 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.
Bas Schuddeboom and Kees Kousemaker working on the Comiclopedia at Lambiek's storage location at the Utrechtse Dwarsstraat in 2004. (Photo: Rick Webb)
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 at 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, Schuddeboom has managed the site in steady collaboration with Kjell Knudde, a comic and pop culture connoisseur 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 creators. Much like his writing partner Kjell, he also has a fondness for peculiarities and comics from unexpected corners of the Earth.
Kjell Knudde and Bas Schuddeboom in front of the Lambiek store in 2018 (Photo: Jurrien de Vries).
Since May 2020, the Comiclopedia's original California-based proofreader Dan Schiff has been 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 for writing articles. 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, in 2012 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.
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. The next two successive Comic Artist Laureates, Herman Roozen and Jan Vriends, have both asked Bas Schuddeboom as one of the lecturers during their special gatherings for comic creators, respectively in Coevorden (2021) and Helmond (2024).
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).
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 'Columnclopedia' column in Stripglossy magazine, detailing anecodes about his research for the Lambiek Comiclopedia. For the 2024 StripGlossy issue about "rejected comics", he served as special advisor for publisher Seb van der Kaaden, while the magazine also contained a lengthy interview about his work as comic editor. Since mid-2025, he also highlights special comic history stories from the Comiclopedia archives for the Stripjournaal podcast, hosted by Robin Vinck and Kurt Morissens.
In addition, Schuddeboom has 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. Since 2020, he has been an advisor for the Museum of Comic Art (MoCA), opened by original comic art collector and architect Arie Korbee in the coastal town Noordwijk. Together with Korbee, graphic designer John Asselbergs and fellow comic historian Ger Apeldoorn, Schuddeboom curated the 2022 overview exposition of 70 years of Donald Duck weekly and the 2023 'Beestenboel' expo about animal comics, while also co-writing and editing the accompanying catalogs.
Robert van der Kroft and Bas Schuddeboom at the presentation of 'Pep Nu!' in Oosterhout on 22 June 2024. Photo © Erwin Suvaal.
Contributions
In 2024, Lotte Roep and Bas Schuddeboom scripted a special four-page story for Eppo magazine's tribute series to Thom Roep and Piet Wijn's 'Douwe Dabbert' comic, drawn by Maarten Gerritsen. Written to surprise Thom Roep, Lotte's father and Bas' former chief editor, they created a possible origin story of how Douwe received his magical knapsack. In that same year, Schuddeboom also wrote a new episode of Pep magazine's 1970s meta humor comic 'Pepijn' for artist Robert van der Kroft, published in Ger Apeldoorn's 'Pep Nu!' anthology book.
In the special thematic issue of Tina dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Patty Klein and Jan Steeman's 'Noortje' comic (issue #18 of 2025), Bas Schuddeboom wrote a special 'Noortje' episode, which Marloes de Vries drew in her own style as a tribute to the character's creators. Schuddeboom also contributed a playful six-page historical overview of Noortje's history to that same issue. Fuelled by his interest in local history and the ironic humor of EC Comics, Bas Schuddeboom wrote the six-page horror story 'Poldergeist!', which was drawn by Michiel Offerman for the second volume of Menno Kooistra and Maarten Janssens' horror anthology 'Bloeddorst' (2025).
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.
'Nena' creators Bas Schuddeboom and Dorith Graef at the 2024 Tina Festival in the Duinrell amusement park.