'Dadaman' (Zone 5300 #6, 1997).
Michel den Hamer is a Belgian-born Dutch comic artist, who has been active under the pen names Zookie and Michel. While distributing his fanzine Yahoo! through the international mail art scene, his absurd gag strips also appeared in several Dutch small press magazines of the 1990s and 2000s, including Wartaal, Incognito and Zone 5300. In later years, he has been publishing his strips and fan art online, first on the Stripster portal and on message boards, then on his social media accounts.
Early life and career
Michel den Hamer was born in 1972 in Lommel, Belgium, close to the border with the Netherlands. When he was six years old, he moved with his family to The Netherlands, settling in the province of North Brabant. There, he picked up his fascination for reading comics, while copying the panels from his favorite series. As a teen, Den Hamer made comics and cartoons for his school newspaper, the local parish magazine and the magazine of his scouting club. His work was also picked up by De Kleine Stem, the juvenile section of the Breda newspaper De Stem. Inspiration-wise, he had a particular fondness for the work of Morris, Willy Vandersteen, André Franquin, Marc Sleen, Jean-Pol and Robert van der Kroft, eventually settling on a traditional Franco-Belgian comic style with an underground touch.
Yahoo! issues #1 and #4.
Yahoo!
In 1992, Den Hamer released the dummy issue of his comic fanzine Yahoo!, which was by then still filled with only his own comics and cartoons. In the following year, he was studying animation at the Tilburg Art Academy, where one of his teachers was the animator Gerrit van Dijk. As making animated films took him too long, he resumed working on his own comic title and eventually dropped out of the academy, eventually settling in the province of Zeeland. Assuming the pen name Zookie, he applied a simpler drawing style and focused on short gag strips.
Comic art by Zookie.
During a period of ten years, "Zookie" was a regular presence in the Dutch small press comics scene, first with his own DIY Zookie-krant, and then with his own chaotic Yahoo! fanzine. Between 1993 and 2003, several issues were released under the cartoonist's own imprint FZ Sumatra. After a while, Zookie became active in mail art, an alternative art movement where artists exchange artwork and fanzines internationally. Distributing his title Yahoo! and his later fanzine Zen this way, he got in touch with other comic creators from The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Japan and the USA. This resulted in collaborations with other fanzines, an Italian collection of his comic strips and participation in an exposition in Japan. Through his new contact, he expanded Yahoo! with longer stories, articles and contributions by others, such as Mark van den Anker, Luuk Bode, Mars Gremmen, Maaike Hartjes, Floris Oudshoorn, Marcel Ruijters, Trick and ckoe.
"Corner strip" from the first issue of Zone 5300 (1994). The police officer notices the two escaped criminals in "the panels above" and arrests them, much to their surprise.
Zone 5300 and other magazines
During the 1990s and early 2000s, Zookie's "nonsense strips" also appeared in other Dutch small press magazines. Through Robert van der Kroft, he was already present in the first issue of Zone 5300, the pop-cultural comic magazine from Rotterdam. For the early issues, he made so-called "corner strips": two gag strips - one vertical and one horizontal - that end in the same panel in the bottom-right corner. Throughout the decade, Zookie continued to contribute his absurd humor strips to Zone 5300. In addition, his strips appeared in Wartaal, Insanity, Chaos, Incognito, Impuls and Sputnick, as well as Jeroen Steehouwer's 'Hildebrand Comix Lowlands' (2003)and the Groningen comic magazine Gr'nn. Recurring characters in Zookie's strips were 'Spock & Spocky' and 'Doctor Feelnoshame' - both co-created with Koen Delaere - as well as 'Eikeltje', 'Zan' and his personal favorite, 'Dadaman'.
'Spock & Spocky' (Zone 5300 #5, 1995).
Fan art and online cartooning
Around 2003, Michel den Hamer had grown tired of the Dutch comics scene. Dropping his Zookie moniker, he turned to making paintings and fan art, mostly signing with only his first name. After sending some of his fan art to Spirou magazine in Belgium, he was surprised to discover that the magazine actually printed some of them. In addition, new comics and cartoons appeared on the Stripster.nl portal, including the gag strip 'De Kwajongens' and some co-productions with scriptwriter Niquicho. In 2013, these Den Hamer-Niquicho strips were collected in the book 'Over Mensen en Monsters' by the Belgian publishing imprint of Peter Bonte. In 2021, that same publisher also released a collection with his solo comics under the title 'Michel den Hamer, Voorheen Zookie'.
Self-portrait.