Frans Piët, tekenaar Sjors en Sjimmie, april 1989 - 30

Frans Piët ( Haarlem, 17 February 1905 - 5 January 1997) was a Dutch comics artist, most famous as the original creator of the longest-running

Dutch comics Dutch comics are comics made in the Netherlands. In Dutch the most common designation for the whole art form is "strip" (short for "stripverhaal" – "strip story" – , though the old-fashioned expression "beeldverhaal" – "picture ...

series of all time: '' Sjors & Sjimmie''.

Biography

He was born in 1905 as the son of a

butcher A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishm ...

. Originally Piët aspired to become a musician and learned to play violin and saxophone. He even performed in The Blue Ramblers, headed by Pi Scheffer. Near the end of the 1920s he applied for a job at publishing company De Spaarnestad, where he drew patterns for

sewing Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a sewing needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era. Before the invention of spinning yarn or weaving fab ...

. In 1932 he was asked to draw comics for the children's magazines issued by De Spaarnestad. At the time

Martin Branner Martin Michael Branner (December 28, 1888 – May 19, 1970), known to his friends as Mike Branner, was a cartoonist who created the popular comic strip ''Winnie Winkle''. Early life Branner was born in Manhattan, New York City on December 2 ...

's '' Perry Winkle'' was very popular under its Dutch translation of ''Sjors'' and even inspired his own eponymous magazine. When the original American comic strip gradually started to put more focus on Perry's sister,

Winnie Winkle ''Winnie Winkle'' is an American comic strip published during a 76-year span (1920–1996). Ten film adaptations were also made. Its premise was conceived by Joseph Medill Patterson, but the stories and artwork were by Martin Branner, who wrote ...

, business deals were made with

King Features King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial ...

syndicate to create a local version of Branner's character, ''Sjors'', to let the popular series continue with its focus on Sjors. In 1938 Piët became the creator of ''Sjors van de Rebellenclub'' (''Sjors of the Rebel's Club''), as the series was popularly titled. Gradually ''Sjors'' would become more its own thing, with storylines set in the Netherlands and a new cast of characters which replaced the original creations of Branner. After World War II the series was retitled ''

Sjors en Sjimmie ''Sjors & Sjimmie'' (''George & Jimmy'') is a Dutch adaptation of the comic strip ''Winnie Winkle'', specifically the character Perry Winkle from that strip. The difference between the American original and the Dutch adaptation is that Sjors (Per ...

'' (''Sjors and Sjimmie'') when Sjors met his black friend Sjimmie, who'd become his

sidekick A sidekick is a slang expression for a close companion or colleague (not necessarily in fiction) who is, or is generally regarded as, subordinate to the one they accompany. Some well-known fictional sidekicks are Don Quixote's Sancho Panza, ...

. Piët would draw ''Sjors and Sjimmie'' until he retired in 1969, after which

Jan Kruis Johannes Andries “Jan” Kruis (; 8 June 1933 – 19 January 2017) was a Dutch comics artist best known for the family strip '' Jack, Jacky and the Juniors'' (''Jan, Jans en de Kinderen''). Biography He began creating comics as a child. Later ...

continued and modernized the series. In 1974 Piët made a celebrity comic strip based on the popular children's TV series ''

Tita Tovenaar Tita Tovenaar or TiTa Tovenaar (translation: ''Tita the wizard'') is a Dutch children's television series, which was produced by the Nederlandse Omroep Stichting and ran between 1972 and 1974. At the time it was popular enough to inspire audio play ...

''. He died in 1997 at the age of 91, from an

intracranial hemorrhage Intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), also known as intracranial bleed, is hemorrhage, bleeding internal bleeding, within the Human skull, skull. Subtypes are intracerebral bleeds (intraventricular bleeds and intraparenchymal bleeds), subarachnoid bleed ...

Sources

External links

Lambiek Comiclopedia article.

Page on dbnl.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Piët, Frans Dutch comics artists Dutch illustrators Dutch humorists 1905 births 1997 deaths Artists from Haarlem