''De Avonturen van Pa Pinkelman'' (''The Adventures of Pa Pinkelman'') was a Dutch text comic, written by Dutch novelist

Godfried Bomans Godfried Jan Arnold Bomans (2 March 1913 – 22 December 1971) was a Dutch author and television personality. Much of his work remains untranslated into English. Life and career Godfried Bomans was born in The Hague and grew up in and aroun ...

and illustrated by Carol Voges. It was published in the Dutch newspaper ''

De Volkskrant ''de Volkskrant'' (; ''The People's Paper'') is a Dutch daily morning newspaper. Founded in 1919, it has a nationwide circulation of about 250,000. Formerly a leading centre-left Catholic broadsheet, ''de Volkskrant'' today is a medium-sized c ...

'' between 1945 and 1952. The stories can be described as an absurd

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

strip, originally intended for children, but gradually drawing in a more adult audience as well, due to references to then actual political events.

History

After the Netherlands were freed from German occupation in 1945

became chief of the cultural department of ''

''. Together with illustrator Carol Voges he made a newspaper comic strip about an old man with magical powers, Pa Pinkelman ("Father Pinkelman") and his jolly wife Tante Pollewop ("Aunt Pollewop"). They help a young boy, Kareltje Flens, who lives a rich and spoiled life, to get away from his luxury life and have some exotic adventures in the

Zuiderzee The Zuiderzee or Zuider Zee (; old spelling ''Zuyderzee'' or ''Zuyder Zee'') was a shallow bay of the North Sea in the northwest of the Netherlands, extending about 100 km (60 miles) inland and at most 50 km (30 miles) wide, with an o ...

Urk Urk () is a municipality and a town in the Flevoland province in the central Netherlands. Urk is first mentioned in historical records dating to the 10th century, when it was still an island in the Zuiderzee, an inland sea that would become part ...

Schokland Schokland () is a former island in the Dutch Zuiderzee, in the municipality of Noordoostpolder. Schokland was an elongated strip of peat land which ceased to be an island when the Noordoostpolder was reclaimed from the sea in 1942. It is now just ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Mag ...

, the

Sahara Desert , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

, the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

and the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

(later stories also bring them to

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

). Pinkelman, Pollewop, Kareltje and his little black slave, Flop, travel together in all kinds of ways, but are constantly followed by three of Kareltje's servants who try to bring him back. The stories have an absurd atmosphere, complete with jokes that break the

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...

. In some episodes Pinkelman also meets famous politicians of the late 1940s and early 1950s, such as

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

Mohammad Mosaddegh Mohammad Mosaddegh ( fa, محمد مصدق, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, after appointment by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of ...

, the Shah of Persia,

Carl Romme Carl Paul Maria Romme (21 December 1896 – 16 October 1980) was a Dutch politician of the defunct Roman Catholic State Party (RKSP) and later co-founder of the Catholic People's Party (KVP) now merged into the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA ...

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

Dwight Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

and

Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...

. Other stories make allusions on post-war situations, such as the

collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...

and the

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

. Bomans himself also made appearances in the strip. The story was an immediate success, and Bomans was asked to write more sequels. After three more installments the series finally came to a close in 1952, because the author felt it took up too much of his time. ''Pa Pinkelman'' has been made available in

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

format, with only a few of the images used as illustrations. Complete versions of the entire comic strip are also available.

Adaptations

In 1964 the

NCRV NCRV (Nederlandse Christelijke Radio Vereniging) (English: Dutch Christian Radio Association) was a public radio and television broadcaster in the Netherlands, mostly transmitting on NPO 1 and NPO 2. On 1 January 2014, NCRV merged with KRO to for ...

adapted the story as a black-and-white children's TV series. It had 20 episodes and was a rudimentary animated series based on Voges' original drawings, while Kitty Janssen and Wim de Haas provided voices. Between October 25, 1976 and March 14, 1977 the

KRO KRO, or (Catholic Radio Broadcasting), was a Dutch public broadcasting organization founded on 23 April 1925. Broadly Catholic in its spiritual outlook, KRO broadcast the bulk of its television output on the NPO 1 channel. KRO was also responsi ...

made another TV adaptation. This was a live-action series starring Ton van Duinhoven and Maya Bouma as Pinkelman and Pollewop.

Legacy

Belgian comics artist

Dirk Stallaert A dirk is a long bladed thrusting dagger.Chisholm, Hugh (ed.), ''Dagger'', The Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. VII, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press (1910), p. 729 Historically, it gained its name from the Highland Dirk (Scot ...

has expressed admiration for the stories of ''Pa Pinkelman''.

Sources

External links

A list of the various book publications
{{DEFAULTSORT:Avonturen Van Pa Pinkelman Dutch comic strips 1945 comics debuts 1952 comics endings Humor comics Fantasy comics Adventure comics Satirical comics Text comics Comics about magic Surreal comedy Comics set in Africa Comics set in the Netherlands Comics set in China Comics set in Japan Comics set in Tibet Comics set in the United States Arctic in fiction Western Sahara in fiction Comics set on the Moon Comics adapted into novels Comics adapted into television series Comics set in the 1940s Comics set in the 1950s Novels by Godfried Bomans Male characters in comics Fictional Dutch people Dutch political satire