L’Univers expliqué à mes petits-enfants

Cover for the Dutch translation of the book by Hubert Reeves.
Het universum uitgelegd aan mijn kleinkinderen is published
by Thomas Rap.

Academic book review

Illustration accompanying an article about various researches looking into the "self"

Sketches 2

These are pictures I painted to visualize a story that has been shimmering in my head for some years. The idea came up in a correspondence with my good Australian friend Thomas Muller. Initially there were just a few lines about this strange setting on a peculiar ship. There was no actual storyline. This setting proved very alluring to me as I've been wandering around on this ship in my head ever since. Now I'm writing down ideas to inject a time element into this frozen world and turn it into an actual story.

Sketches

 

Designs and sketches for a graphic novel. Unfortunately this project will not be realized. But I would like to use this more refrained style for another book, for which I have a couple of good ideas.

Sonallah Ibrahim

A feature illustration for the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. The portrayed writer is the Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim, one of the writers mentioned in the bookreview article on Egyptian dissident literature for which this illustration was made. Ibrahim is the writer of the phenomenal novel The Committee.

Halloween rave

Just a couple more days and its Halloween! Illustration
for an article about an upcoming Halloween rave party.

Brian Yuzna and Tom Six

Directors Brian Yuzna and Tom Six portrayed for a Dutch cult-film magazine. Dutchman Tom Six gained notoriety with his film The Human Centipede.

Here's Jack

A portrait on the occasion of Here's Jack, a program of Jack Nicholson's best films touring the Netherlands.

OUT NOW: Stad van Klei (City of Clay)

Out now! And available at Oog & Blik/de Bezige Bij; the graphic novel Stad van Klei (City of Clay). Go here to download a printable 300 dpi jpg of the cover.

Based on the Egyptian novel Over the Bridge by Mohamed El- Bisatie, this 136 page story was drawn in Cairo, Egypt where I have been living for the last couple of years.

The book follows the misadventures of civil servant Salem and his descent into madness when he starts labouring on an elaborate scheme that involves the creation of an entire imaginary town and its police force.

While personally collecting the invented town's security budget, Salem finds himself forced to write an endless amount of believable police reports in order to keep the invented town off the radar of his superiors. For this he starts to obsessively build a clay model of the town and it's citizens in his own living room.

Soon the imaginary and the real world fold into one when the town starts to reflect Egypt's corrupt and bureaucratic reality against Salem's will. Instead of earning Salem bonusses, the police force is cracking down on self inflicted security problems. Salem finds himself victimized by the merciless and corrupt police inspector he himself created.

Stad van Klei will be in bookstores in Holland and Belgium soon! Get one now!

 

                                   

Background Painting

A couple of years back I had a lot of fun working on an animated short directed by Sylvia Kristel, Topor et Moi. I had the chance then to try out some special effects animation and did a lot of background paintings for her. A sequel was contemplated, and I did some art for the pitch of that, like this painting of a ghostly backlot.

John Waters portret

This was suposed to be just a small editorial illustration for a film magazine, but the art sucked me in so I gave it a more laborous rendition. 

De Verzamelaar Verzameld (The Collector Collected)

Three pages from the story De Verzamelaar Verzameld (The Collector Collected). This 11 page horror-suspense story, done in pencil, dealing with pseudo-Freudian science, hypnotism and the pathology of collecting, was made for a Dutch horror anthology, to be edited by Erik Kriek, Luuk Bode and me. The anthology never came out but it did result in a handful of beautiful stories. Michiel de Jong, Erik Kriek and Hisko Hulsing all did some of their best work for the occasion. This story was eventually published in Zone 5300 magazine a while back.