Hanco Kolk

Hanco Kolk is one of Holland's most famous comics artists, best known for his series drawn with Peter de Wit, including 'Gilles de Geus' and 'S1ngle'. Born in Den Helder, he started out self-publishing his own magazine called 'In de Gekleurde Omelet', which featured his artwork as well as contributions by Ben Jansen and Aloys Oosterwijk. Kolk formed Studio Arnhem with the young artists/writers Oosterwijk, Jansen and René Meulenbroek in 1980, shortly afterwards joined by Gerard Leever. The studio produced a great variety of comics for several Dutch and Belgian publications. Kolk cooperated on the newspaper strip 'Otto Raaf', as well as 'Ernst Vrolijk & Dik Hout' (with Gleever and René Meulenbroek) for Robbedoes. He also wrote scripts for the Dutch Donald Duck weekly.

He eventually began a fruitful collaboration with Peter de Wit, starting with the creation of 'Gilles de Geus' in Eppo in 1984. This series is by many considered the Dutch equivalent of 'Astérix'. In 1988, Kolk and De Wit also came up with the photo comic 'Mannetje & Mannetje', with themselves in the starring roles. This strip was also adapted in a TV series for VPRO television. In addition, Kolk and De Wit hosted a course in drawing comics for the educational broadcasting company Teleac. For Vara TV Magazine, they made the comics version of the television comedy 'Laat Maar Zitten' in 1992. Eventually, they began producing their work through their own studio, De Plaatjesmakers.

On his own, Kolk created 'Cor Daad', that appeared in Taptoe between 1984 and 1998, as well as 'Inspecteur Netjes', which was published in several magazines from 1987. Other, more stortlived, creations include 'Carlo & Bertje' in N.O.T. and 'N.Y. Moord' in Titanic. As a writer, he has cooperated with Uco Egmond on 'Falco en Donjon' in Eppo and with Ben Westervoorde on 'De Muziekbuurters' in Taptoe.

In 1999, when expecting a nervous breakdown, Kolk went on a retreat in Italy. In the sketchbook he kept as a diary, he developed a whole new drawing style, which he applied to the prize-winning comic 'Meccano' after his return. In 2001, he also resumed his collaboration with Peter de Wit, and created the daily newspaper strip 'S1NGLE', which appears in newspaper Het Parool. In 2003, the sketchbook-diary which he drew in Italy, was published with the title 'Retraite' by publisher Oog & Blik.