Jan-Willem de Vries

I have always been interested in comics and movies. From 1993 until 1997 I went to art school (Academie Minerva in Groningen) and after that I worked a few years as an illustrator and comic artist. I slowly discovered that the act of drawing was something I did out of a necessity. It enabled me to tell stories with images. I noticed that most of my fellow comic artists seemed to enjoy every minute of the process, making drawings and sketches all the time. Even if they were not working on a specific story or character. But to me those things were the primary goal to pick up a pencil. I had a passion for the result, but I didn't really enjoy the process.

Since 2009 I started writing about the history of Dutch comics and animation and of this process I enjoyed every minute! I chronicled an important part of our cultural herritage and met a lot of nice people in the meantime.

More recently I started to write comic books again, but this time for other artists to draw. These collaborations are wonderful and I am exactly doing what I like most: writing, structuring and sometimes a little layout or graphic design.

I still have a lot of stories to tell and in the following years I hope to spend more time working on them.

Left: page from my script. Right: final page, drawn by Ben Westervoorde.

Destination Unknown. Two pages of an unused scenario.

CAP'TAIN KEN

Text and drawings:

Jan-Willem de Vries

Some of my early comic work

After I graduated art school I created a lot of comics. It was fun to make short gag strips for a while, but I preferred bigger projects and longer stories. In 2006 and 2007 I teamed up with colleagues Eric Snelleman and Jan Krol to create the daily newspaper comic Zapklaar. It was published in five Dutch newspapers.

MEDI-GEIN

Published in magazines for hospital employees.

Text and drawings:

Jan-Willem de Vries

CORAL & COMPANY

Ideas: Jan Krol

Drawings: Jan-Willem de Vries

ZAPKLAAR

Published in: De Leidsche Courant, Het Noordhollands Dagblad and het Haarlems Dagblad.

Ideas: Jan Krol

Layout: Jan-Willem

de Vries