Henk Albers

Henk Albers was a legendary Dutch comics artist, best known for his work for magazines like Pep and Donald Duck, but also for the many anecdotes about his lifestyle. When he was still a teenager, Albers got drawing lessons from Wim Lensen at the Toonder Studios. During the War, he remained active for the studio's animation department. After the war, he started to work for magazines like Stripfilm and Wim Meuldijk's Ketelbinkie-krant. He created the newspaper comic 'Tom Lucky' in 1946, and a year later, he came up with 'Bassie Bol' in De Waarheid. He also assisted Siem Praamsma as an inker and co-plotter for a while. In 1947, he created the "beeldroman" series 'De Kat'. In the following two years, he drew cartoons for some "naughty" magazines, for which he was even apprehended by the police.

After having worked in the advertising department of Van Leer's Vaten for a couple of years, he became a freelancer in 1956. He made comics for many magazines, like 'Wappe de Kobold' in Haak In (published by the margarine factory Leeuwezegel) and did many contributions to the AVRO Radiobode ('Miss Therie', 'Koos de Matroos', 'Fee Rosalinde'). He also illustrated record covers and advertisements.

In 1959, he traveled through Holland with a cabaret group. He worked for the Dutch Donald Duck weekly from 1957, where he did sections like 'Ditjes en Datjes' and 'Duckstadkrant', as well as 'Silly Symphonies' and cover illustrations.

Eight years later, he joined Pep, where he did parodies on fairy tales and a satirical version of 'Lucky Luke', which resulted in the series 'De Wereld van Lucky Luke'. In Televizier, he made 'Het Document van Venus'. In 1974, he was employed by Dargaud in Paris to make four short stories of 'Lucky Luke' with scriptwriter Yvan Delporte. During the final years of his career, he made 'Kobus de Kat' with Otto Veenhoven in Het Parool. He also cooperated with Veenhoven on four illustrated books, published by Mulder in 1978. After his death, Henk Albers became a sort of cult hero comic artist, not so much for his artistic legacy, but rather for the numerous anecdotes about his life that went around in the comic world.