'Red Cat'.
Herwin Walravens was a Dutch comic artist who, during the 1980s, was active under the pseudonym Herrie in small press magazines like TNT, Baal and Striprofiel, as well as the communist newspaper De Waarheid. His longest-running series was 'Red Cat' (1985).
Early life and career
Born in 1965 in The Hague, he studied at the Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam. During this period he contributed to amateurs comic magazines like Ernst van Veenendaal's TNT, Marc de Boer's Baal and Maarten de Meulder's Striprofiel . His regular characters were 'Go-Go' and his anthropomorphic cat 'Red Cat', who originated in his high school newspaper at the KSE in Etten-Leur. Walravens also self-published a comic book with these characters in 1983. Walravens lived in a squat at the time, so it is no surprise that his comics show the anarchistic streak of the punk and squatting movements. Peter Pontiac and American underground comix artists served as the main inspiration for him and his friends.
Cover illustrations by Herwin Walravens for TNT and Go-Go.
With Van Veenendaal and De Boer, he formed the collective Comic Collectief in 1984. The trio was responsible for filling the comic page of Communist newspaper De Waarheid from late 1984. The trio apparently plotted together, while Van Veenendaal provided most of the artwork. Between 2 April and 18 May 1985 Walravens' own creation 'Red Cat' made its appearance in the paper, which the artist signed with "Herrie" (a Dutch word for "noise"). The Comic Collectief also self-published a parody of Donald Duck weekly called 'Bad Duck' in 1985.
Other activities
Walravens then disappeared off the comics radar. He moved to Thailand, where he blogged and occasionally wrote for magazines. He has been active as an animal rights activist and ran his own vegan restaurant in the Sukhumvit district of Bangkok. He is now Thailand's only vegan bicycle vendor with his Vegan Runners Cafe in Prajak Park in Udon Thani. He is also the author of pocket guides for vegan restaurants in Japan and Bangkok, and of a recipe book for vegan pizzas.
'Red Cat' (De Waarheid, 18 April 1985). Translation: "Hey, Go-Go. I've just bought a video recorder from my salary!" - "Ha!" - "And I also bought a bunch of videos for 48 hours of viewing pleasure. Chaplin movies, "Duck's", "Fritz the Cat" and a lot more." - "Two days later..." - "This morning a man and his cat have been discovered in critical condition. At closer inspection they turned out to suffer from an overdose of TV radiation."