Aart Clerkx

Aart Clerkx is a Dutch underground artist, also known under his pen name, Acé. He was born in 1945 in Wassenaar, north of The Hague, only a month after World War II ended in occupied Holland.

Aart Clerkx began his comics career in 1970 with some illustrations and short stories for Aloha. He worked for this magazine until 1974, and his best known character of this period is 'Jan Tit'. He additionally made satirical comics for Tante Leny Presenteert and he had a daily comic called 'Jan en Wim' in the Dutch journal Trouw. Clerkx also filled the back pages of De Nieuwe Linie, and contributed to Avenue and Nieuwe Revue.

During the 1970s, he drew for alternative magazines like Furore, Inkt and Poezenkrant, and published a black and white comic book called 'Hamlet'. In the 1980s, he worked for the Dutch underground magazines Gummi, De Vrije Balloen and De Waarheid ('Jan Klaassen'), and for Gezellig & Leuk, where he published 'Doodverf'. He published books like 'ME Man', 'Jan Klaassen' en '10 Jaar Crisis' with the publisher Espee. In the past decade, Aart Clerkx has mainly been active as a painter. In 2006, he returned to the comix scene with the comic book 'Dit en Dat', published by Oogenblik.