Jommeke - 'Het Kriebelkruid' (1982).
Edwin Wouters is a Belgian art teacher and comic artist, most notable as Jef Nys' first and longtime assistant on the 'Jommeke' series. From 1968 on, he collaborated on over 45 'Jommeke' albums, first only as co-worker, but eventually as an allround writer and artist. Combining his Studio Nys work with a day job as an art teacher, Wouters produced about one 'Jommeke' album per year. Together with Karel Boumans, Wouters also created a short-lived comic series, 'De 4 Ka's' (1976), published in 't Kapoentje.
Early life
Edwin Wouters was born in 1938 in Wetteren as the son of veterinarian Dr. Jaak Wouters (1896-1981). At age 6, his mother died. As his father already had a busy life due to being the only vet in the village, he barely had time to take care of the household. While a female housekeeper cooked for the four children, the kids were otherwise left completely on their own, and instinctively neglected their homework. As a result, Wouters struggled to make it through elementary and high school. One of the few subjects he excelled in was drawing. At his teachers' advice, he started studying Fine Arts at the Sint-Lucas School of Arts in Ghent, graduating in 1961 in Advertising Art. As a child, Wouters was intrigued by Willy Vandersteen's 'Suske en Wiske' stories in the newspaper De Standaard, as well as the comics in Spirou and Tintin magazine, singling out André Franquin, Berck and Morris as his personal favorites. He copied the drawings, learning a lot about staging stories. As a teenager in 1951, Wouters saw one of his gag comics published in the readers' mail section of the children's magazine 't Kapoentje.
Cartoon by Edwin Wouters for the booklet 'Volksdiergeneeskunde' (1966) by his father Jaak Wouters.
During his military service, Wouters worked in the army library and made illustrations for a military magazine. One month before he would return to civilian service, he received a proposal to teach Advertising Design at the Imelda-Institute, a division for young women of the St. Lucas School of Arts in Brussels. When he told his lieutenant-colonel about it, he offered Wouters a counter proposal. He asked him to keep working in the army library, but in civilian service. Although tempting, Wouters still decided to take the teaching job. In 1970, he left Imelda in favor of the Sint-Lucas School of Arts in Ghent, where he also taught Advertising Design until his retirement in 2000. Since he was teaching less hours and was working closer to his hometown, this left him with more time for drawing. One early drawing job was making cartoons for a book his father self-published about public veterinary medicine ('Volksdiergeneeskunde', 1966).
'Mini-Jul' (Ohee #238, 1967).
Early comics career
By the mid-1960s, Wouters also turned to creating comics professionally. In 1965, the comic artist Marc Sleen left the newspaper Het Volk and its children's supplement 't Kapoentje, for which he had made his signature series 'Nero', as well as the gag comics 'De Lustige Kapoentjes' and 'Piet Fluwijn en Bolleke' in. While 'Nero' now appeared in the rival newspaper De Standaard, 'De Lustige Kapoentjes' and 'Piet Fluwijn en Bolleke' were discontinued. Although Het Volk still had another successful comic artist under contract, Jef Nys with his series 'Jommeke', the editors felt that 't Kapoentje could use a replacement comic. They organized a contest, of which the acceptable entries were published in 't Kapoentje. Readers could vote which of these comics they liked the best. Wouters participated under the pseudonym Ewé with the comic 'Wapie Wipie', starring a kangaroo. Among the other contestants were Roger Exelmans (Roex) and an artist known only as Freddy. Eventually, Freddy was voted the winner, with Wouters ending second place. At the time, Freddy was well-known to the general audience through his graphic contributions to the daily weather forecasts of Armand Pien on the Flemish public TV channel BRT. In later interviews, Wouters recalled that even the editors of Het Volk felt it was a bit unfair that this "TV celebrity" had won. As a consolation award, the "unknown" competitors were given a spot in Het Volk's other children's comic magazine, Ohee. In the second half of the 1960s, Wouters' comics 'Mini-Jul', 'Jim Baby' and 'Kenny et Bert' appeared in the pages of Ohee. In the same magazine, he also helped Karel Boumans with his 'Bert Crak' feature.
First 'Lustige Kapoentjes' gag drawn by Edwin Wouters ('t Kapoentje #31, 4 August 1965).
Assisting Jef Nys
Although Wouters wasn't the winner of Het Volk's 1965 comics contest, it brought him to the attention of Jef Nys, who had been writing and drawing all of his comics on his own for a full decade. After Marc Sleen had left 't Kapoentje, Nys also continued the magazine's flagship comic 'De Lustige Kapoentjes' for a few gags. Since Sleen's creations couldn't legally be used, Nys created new characters, but kept the basic concept of a group of kids playing tricks on a mean elderly teen and a bumbling police officer. Planning a vacation, Nys asked Wouters to fill in for him and create four 'Lustige Kapoentjes' pages. For an inexperienced artist like Wouters, this wasn't an easy task. Nys gave him some advice, but otherwise he was expected to copy his characters as best as possible, while coming up with his own gags. Nys was satisfied with his ghosting, but it took three years before the paths of the two artists crossed again.
Wouters takes over from Jef Nys in strip 75 of 'Neuzen bij de Vleet' (1968). Theofiel's father has a large nose, due to professor Gobelijn's latest invention.
In June 1968, the overworked Nys fell ill with heart problems, right in the middle of the 'Jommeke' story 'Neuzen Bij De Vleet'. Wouters was brought in to finish the story, starting with strip 75. Again, he had to figure out everything on his own, including the rest of the plot. His inexperienced art, as he was still trying to get the characters' designs into his fingers, clashed considerably with Nys' artwork. Wouters was also uninformed about what kind of pens Nys used. He managed to complete the story, all after hours, juggling with his duties as an art teacher. However, Wouters eventually grew in his role as 'Jommeke' ghost artist, and Nys started contacting him more frequently whenever he needed an extra hand, planned a vacation or faced an urgent deadline.
Still, decades later, Nys had his assistant Philippe Delzenne redraw the pages Wouters had ghosted in 'Neuzen Bij De Vleet'. Wouters didn't take it personal, since Nys was already having older albums redrawn out of dissatisfaction with some of the early artwork or to modernize them for a new generation.
'Jommeke in Bobbejaanland' (1978), starring singer and theme park owner Bobbejaan Schoepen.
Allround 'Jommeke' artist
By 1970, Wouters began working with Jef Nys more frequently, initially as an inker and background artist. After a while, he was allowed to pencil side characters, and eventually also the main cast. Wouters also made several full-page illustrations that appeared as atmospheric intermezzos in some of the 'Jommeke' albums. Nys's only criticism was that Wouters drew a bit too caricaturally, a result of his influence from the "School of Marcinelle" artists in Spirou magazine. In 1972, Nys offered Wouters a full-time contract with a higher salary than what he earned at the academy. After considering the offer, Wouters eventually chose for job certainty and stayed at the academy. This motivated Nys to actively apply for more assistants, over the years hiring Hugo De Sterk, Eric De Rop, Philippe Delzenne and Gerd Van Loock. Within the team, Wouters was the odd man out. He was older than his colleagues, and the only one working from home. Since he didn't draw in Nys' house studio like the others, Wouters had more artistic freedom, but due to his different stylistic approach, he was the only co-worker who didn't design album covers. One exception was 'Het Monster in de Ruïne', but even here Nys modified Wouters' pencil work in ink.
Jommeke - 'Choco Ontvoerd' (1975).
In the story 'De Kristallen Grot' (1974), Wouters was allowed to draw the entire story from page 7 on. 'Choco Ontvoerd' (1975) was the first story completely written and drawn by Wouters on his own. Several more followed. For many years, Wouters wrote and drew a full 'Jommeke' story each year, a production schedule he could combine with his teaching job. On occasion, he received assistance for the background art, first from Karel Boumans, then from Philippe Delzenne. A notable story Jef Nys passed on to Wouters was 'Jommeke in Bobbejaanland' (1978), a commercial album requested by newspaper Het Volk in collaboration with the theme park Bobbejaanland in Lichtaart, Belgium. The park founder, singer Bobbejaan Schoepen, was given a starring role in the story, marking one of the rare occasions that a real-life celebrity was featured in the 'Jommeke' series.
'Jommeke' - 'De Granda Papiljan'.
For a long while, teachers weren't allowed to have a job on the side, so Wouters kept his involvement with the 'Jommeke' stories a secret. On top of that, the co-workers of Studio Nys weren't credited for their work on specific 'Jommeke' albums until after Nys' death. As a result, identifying the contributions by Wouters requires either artwork recognition or statements made in interviews. Interviewed by Pieter Deschoolmeester for De Stripspeciaalzaak (26 June 2025), Wouters confirmed that he wrote and drew stories like 'De Njam-Njambloem', De Granda Papiljan', 'Prins Filiberke', 'De Haaienrots', 'Melanie', 'Het Monster Uit De Ruïne', 'De Pestkopjes', 'Het Kriebelkruid', 'Het Apencircus', 'Het Geheimzinnige Eiland', 'De Kippen van Gobelijn', 'Apen te Koop', 'Het Gekkengas' (second half drawn by Hugo De Sterk), 'De Grote Puzzel' and 'De Hellestokers'. Particularly 'De Hellestokers' (1989) was a notably dark departure from the regular 'Jommeke' formula, featuring quite a scary story for the young target audience, with devils. Wouters was only allowed to make it if the story ended with Jommeke waking up and realizing it was just a nightmare.
Jommeke - 'De Hellestokers' (1989).
During the 1990s, Jan Ruysbergh was the main scriptwriter for the 'Jommeke' series, and Wouters also drew several of his stories. For instance the albums 'De Verdroogde Bron', 'De Appelvreters', 'De Slangengodin', 'Fifi in de Knoei', 'De Verdwaalde Vuurtoren', 'Paniek op de Acropolis', 'Berta Gobelijn', 'De Vurige Inktvis', 'De Zilveren Traan', 'De Kraaienburcht' and 'De Lachende Mango's'. With Ruysbergh, Wouters also drew most of the 'Jommeke' short stories and gag pages for Het Volk's juvenile supplement De Jommekeskrant (the successor of 't Kapoentje). These stories were later reprinted in seasonal annuals. After retiring from his day job, Wouters continued to script new 'Jommeke' stories throughout the 2000s and 2010s, although by now he left most of the drawing to the other artists, Philippe Delzenne and Gerd Van Loock.
Overall, Edwin Wouters has drawn and often written about 30 'Jommeke' albums on his own, and participated in the production of about an additional ten volumes.
'De 4 Ka's', by Wouters & Boumans.
Solo career
Throughout his career, Wouters maintained a good working relationship with Jef Nys. One time, the publishing company Dupuis offered him to create his own comic for Spirou magazine, but Wouters stayed loyal to Nys. Besides his 1960s Ohee comics, Wouters had a very limited solo comics output. In 1976, Wouters and his friend Karel Boumans, using the collective pseudonym Wika, created the short story comic feature 'De 4 Ka's' for 't Kapoentje, about a circus family. The title was probably inspired by Tibet and Mittéï's 'Les 3A' (1962-1967) from Tintin magazine. Where all members of 'Les 3A' had first names starting with the letter "A", the names of the 4 Ka's team began with a "K", in line with the first letter of 't Kapoentje.
In 2014, the publisher Peter Bonte released a compilation of the solo comics by Wouters under the title 'Edwin Wouters Gebundeld'.
Recognition
On 6 September 2015, Edwin Wouters was honored in his hometown Wetteren as a citizen who made a meritorious contribution to the village. As of 2025, Edwin Wouters is the oldest surviving former 'Jommeke' artist.
Self-portrait from 1965.