BRUL! #17

 Six pages of a metaphysical children's adventure in space for the magazine BRUL!

Paradiso Gevelexpositie

33 musician portraits on display on pop venue Paradiso, Amsterdam!

Paradiso Gevelexpositie

 

 

A friday afternoon drawing

 

Schokkend Nieuws #165 - Cover Art

Cover art for the Dutch film magazine, this time with a sea-danger special. An Architeuthis Dux is shamelessly cutting off surfers in the wall of the wave.
 

Expo in record store CONCERTO

 During the month December there's a small but colorful expo of my illustration work in Amsterdam's coolest store for films and music, Concerto in the Utrechtsestraat.

CairoComix festival #8 in Egypt

 Last weekend I was a guest at the anual comics festival in cairo and I had a blast. We showcased some of the musicians portraits I've been making and sold lots of books and posters at my Arabic publisher Nool Books stand. Hope to attend again another year!

Art prints (Giclée)

Three musicians portraits from my International Pop series, gorgeously and exclusively printed on A3. The color result is beyond what I imagined and I have a very happy customer. Mail me if you are interested. There are now 35 portraits to choose from.

 

Nachten (VII)

For every issue, poetry magazine Awater asks a comic artist to work with a poem to create a page. I was aksed to rework one of Couperus' esotheric poems from around the turn of the (last) centrury. Couperus did works of fiction on Pharaonic times so it seemed natural to get that imagery in here too. AWATER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

R.I.P. Erkin Koray (1941-2023)

DABKE! mix

A mix recorded from my 45s with songs in the infectious dance style from the Levant. On the cover we see my drawing of the beautiful Samira Tawfik who's Bedouin style music I came to love while living in Amman, Jordan.

Milan Hulsing · Dabke!

Outlines

 Working on a comic without lines again. What freedom. If needed details can always be added - or not!

Ananda Shankar

 Portrait of Ananda Shankar and his psychedelic sitar-grooves.

Bizunesh Bekele

 'The World of International Pop' portrait series - Ethiopian singer Bizunesh Bekele, first lady of Ethiopian popular music.

 

Concept Art

Concept Art for the documentary Een Porseleinen Huwelijk (BNNVara, 2022) about Jorge Zorreguieta.

 

The Smuggler in Arabic

Along with the author's copies, Nool Books generously included a slew of books from their increasingly interesting catalogue in the box. Thanks! https://www.noolbooks.com/ The color printing and paper look and feel just right.

 

PORTRAITS

A new exiting project I've started to explore. More news soon.

Dark and Unnatural - 100 illustrations - New Book!

 

Donker en onnatuurlijk

Donker en onnatuurlijk (Dark and Unnatural) is a book compiling over 100 illustrations that were done in majority for film magazine Schokkend Nieuws. Concertobooks published it and the printing is gorgeous.

 

 

As a bonus it contains the animated movie Magic Show (2009) on DVD, written by Ruud den Drijver and animated and directed by yours truly.

Two new pages for Naomi Tales #2

Some of the many drawings I did for readers this year. Especially during the pandemic this was a nice way to be in touch with you.

 

Try out

 

There's one story that has been developing in my mind for some 17 years. Whenever I go on long hikes the story bubbles up. I enjoy spending time thinking it over. I never wrote it down. One day I will draw this story. It'll feature some biographical elements in an otherwise fictitious plot featuring the usual bunch of forgers. Last December I felt like trying out a style and mood to see if it would fit the story. It doesn't, at all. Back to the drawing board!

Meeting Pascal Rabaté

 

Drawings made for readers

 

Old work: The Bloodless

A picture book I drew as a young man around 2000 and self-published in a run of 4 copies a few years later. I couldn't find a publisher for this surreal, bleak tale about - I guess - the blurring of the lines between capitalism and socialism in our times. It did end up as a short story in the anthology Wat Fred niet wist (2004).

 

The story shares some themes with the movie Goodbye Lenin (2003), as was pointed out by people when the story appeared in 2004. My protagonist and his mother haven't left their appartment since the Berlin wall fell and fill their days by reading old communist newspapers and him dressing up as his father. I guess the feeling of 'ostalgia' was in the air then.

 

 

I was immodestly and foolishly under the spell of people like Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Joseph Lada, Picasso and obviously Frans Masereel. I was living in Peshawar, Pakistan when I made this as my girlfriend Tessa worked with Afghan refugees there. I remember bringing the art along on a long trip we did in Pakistan and India and me drawing further panels in the night trains we took. I got the idea for the drawing above at an art show in a church in Goa that warned against the abuse of alcohol. I'd like to see that Goan picture again sometime.