Peter C. A. de Jong has the biggest Douwe Dabbert Fansite. Part of the fansite is a special page of gesture drawings made by artists. I’ve also been asked to make such a drawing.
I enjoyed reading Douwe Dabbert myself. The stories were first published as serials in the weekly magazine of Donald Duck. Meaning the first time I jumped right in the middle of one of his adventures. It was Het Flodderwerk van Pief or Florijn de Flierfluiter.
But for the gesture drawing I wanted to do a small tribute to my favourite story: De Heksen van Eergisteren.
I’ve made a YouTube video of the process and as a new feature I’ve added commentary in English. I also made Dutch audio track, but it seems I don’t have the option to add to the video.
I can recommend the stories of Douwe Dabbert for everyone who likes fantasy adventures. It’s fit for all ages, but might sometimes be too scary for the younger ones.
Piet Wijn makes wonderful art and is well worth looking up. I’ve always admired him for teaching himself how to draw with his left hand after he could no longer use his right hand. He has drawn almost all the stories, Dick Matena had to come in to finish the last one.
And I believe all the stories were written by Thom Roep, so let’s give credit where it’s due. The first time I saw him was during an episode of Dit is Disney, where he explained how comics are made. I had it on videotape and watched a lot of times. I thought it was on YouTube, but I can no longer find the clip.
