'Ome Henk'. Translation: "Say, your honor." - "Yes?" - "Can't you hurry up that sentence?" - "Why?" - "I'm double parked." - "It's green and if you get it on your head, you're dead!" - "Now, what is it?" - "A snooker table!".
Leo de Veld is a Dutch comic artist, commercial illustrator and filmmaker. Together with Mischa Oudwater, he produced films and created the comic feature based on the 'Purno de Purno' animated TV show for Hello You! magazine. During the 1990s, he was also the artist of the comic books based on the 'Ome Henk' character from comedy records.
Movie maker
Leo de Veld was born in 1967 in Rotterdam. Educated at that city's Willem de Kooning Academy, De Veld first came to notice as a filmmaker. On 12 February 1991, newspaper Het Vrije Volk reported about a low-budget movie produced by De Veld and his fellow student Mischa Oudwater. Dealing with a completely unfunny court jester who is banished by his king and then taken under the wings of a wizard duo, their production 'Notke de Stamelaar' was completely by their own means. Both creators not only wrote the story, they also did the camera work, costume design, location scouting and soundtrack composition. The film premiered on 17 February 1991 on the Nighttown pop stage. In 1995, De Veld and Oudwater also produced a short behind-the-scenes film about the production of the alternative comic magazine Zone 5300, featuring Tonio van Vugt, Robert van der Kroft, Floris Oudshoorn, Maaike Hartjes, Koen Hottentot, Berend Vonk and several other co-workers.
'Purno de Purno' comic from the 1997 Hello You! Comic Special.
Purno de Purno comics
Still in the 1990s, both De Veld and Oudwater also ventured into the world of comics. For the educational English-language magazine Hello You!, they collaborated in the mid-1990s on a comic feature about 'Purno de Purno', based on the digitally animated TV series by Hootchie Cootchie Cartoons for VPRO television. 'Purno de Purno' was broadcast in prime time during the children's TV show Villa Achterwerk, a program already notorious for featuring themes and subversive comedy most parents would consider to be unsuitable for their offspring. 'Purno de Purno' featured strange narratives with psychedelic imagery, double entendres referring to sex & drugs and characters that seemed to have stumbled away from underground comix. The show easily became a cult program, paving the way for De Veld and Oudwater's comic series.
Moody & Smiley
Until 2001, De Veld and Oudwater also created the comic strip 'Moody & Smiley' in TKMST Magazine, a magazine for high school graduates. In later years, Mischa Oudwater worked as journalist and owner of a pop up Asian BBQ restaurant.
Ome Henk
Artwork by Leo de Veld additionally appeared in Zone 5300 and a publication for the 2002 Week of the Chronically Ill. Between 1994 and 1996, De Veld provided the artwork for four Bruna comic books featuring 'Ome Henk', tying in with the puerile comedy records about the rude and violent Uncle Henk persona of comedian Frank van der Plas. The covers of Ome Henk's albums were illustrated by Eric Schreurs.
Graphic contributions
Since the mid-2000s, Leo de Veld ihas been the house cartoonist of posters, flyers and other material for Opzoomer Mee, a Rotterdam foundation that stimulates city residents to take their own initiatives in mutual cooperation to make their street, neighborhood and city cleaner, safer and more social. As illustrator and graphic designer, Leo de Veld mostly works for the advertising industry.
Artwork by Leo de Veld for the Opzoomer Mee initiative in Rotterdam.