Sine Qua Non re-edition

Woohoo, a new edition of Sine Qua Non, by The Hoochie Coochie in France. The first edition (2005) had not been available for years. This was my first venture into emulating medieval art into my work, and the one without other books such as Inferno, 1348 and All Saints could not have existed. Very nice silkscreened cover and expanded preface and afterword. 

Thanks to the Dutch Literary Fund, La Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the Centre National du Livre for their generous support.

 

Hanze Art

For the Summer, a number of drawing by me will be on display at the railway station of Deventer, situated in the east of The Netherlands. Many thanks to my friend Marcel Herms and Petrichor editors for inviting me to join this very cool project commemorating the city's historical past and its part in the Hansa union (a distant predecessor to the EU, one could say)
 

Flying nuns over Rotterdam

And now for something different. This clip is from a while ago. It came up again in my feed. Outsider-ish, uncategorisable music from Rotterdam's Harry Merry. The clip was made by my friend Marianne van Maaren, whom i gave some of my flying nuns to play with.

Earth artichokes attack

Connecting people

After Bruegel.

Astrolabium

World According To

Non plus ultra

This might be a new picturebook. I am assembling my unpublished medieval drawings. New ideas for this way of working are getting scarce, so it could be my last nunsploitation book.

Giddiyap!

This linocut of a rope-skipping centauroid was done during my stay in Slovenia, early October.

The march of progress

A comment on man's technobedazzlement of today and an obvious nod to Bosch's Haywain.

Topsy turvy fishing

The backside of sketchbook #57. Currently assembling ideas for the 'upside down world', a concept going back to medieval culture. I might do a large drawing with Gwen Stok along this theme, but also part of my The 9th Island story will contain an episode referring to it.

More luxuria

 More variations on the theme of luxuria. The one on top is more or less copied from the cover of the well-known novel 'Montaillou' by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, which, together with Umbero Eco's The Name Of The Rose, paved the way for a plethora of medieval-themed literature back in the 1980s.
No idea if i can make it to a full-sized series. We'll see.

Hieronymus Bosch Bonus Pages

Comestum Anates

A happy 2016 to my fellow ducks!

Wine and dine in Veneto

Normally, drawing comics and the like does not put much food into my mouth, but late September it certainly did. As a long-time partner to the Treviso Comic Book Festival,  Gruppo Ristoratori della Marca Trevigiana invited me to to join the Dripping Taste tour in the Veneto area, together with my old pals Ole Comoll Christensen (DK) and Jakob Klemencic (SLO). We were joined by Cynthia Neves (BRA) a day later. So, next to touring around Treviso and visiting local industries, there were also mega-lunches to enjoy. That does make one feel somewhat like a barbarian, coming from one of those mashed-potato countries up north.

This is us sketching, joined by Stefano Piccoli from Dripping Taste in the Canova Museum - dedicated to neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova.

A giant sandal outside the Canova Museum.

A cruel sketch from a Canova painting. The neoclassical beauty standards of the time were frigging weird.

My first sketch on tour, after a visit to the Bosa ceramics factory. It features a few designs of theirs (the leegant shapes were often reminiscent of Lorenzo Matotti's comics) and Typex, my roommate at the hotel in Treviso. He likes to draw caricatures of his comics collegues and had to borrow a crummy mountain bike to get around in Treviso.

And sometimes, it is lunchtime. This was done at Villa Razzolini Loredan, where i learnt that 'to have lunch with the pope' is a local expression for having very good food. (Yes, I know i am lagging behind a few popes in this drawing. A pope is a pope, right?)

A sketch of the fully automatic milking contraption at the Vaka Mora dairy farm. The cows do all the work themselves.

Malanotte. Weird name for a Raboso wine. I'm not making it up.

Lunch again, at Ristorante Le Beccherie. Starter called 'butterfly'. Physiognomy kicked in just then.

Although many, if not all, parts of the tour were great, my personal highlight was a visit to sculptor Romano Abate, who does wildly grotesque works, inspired by classic mythology. My sketch here was done after a hommage to Dante Alighieri, made from the trunk of a 2,000 year old olive tree. It felt like home to be there.

Hieronymus Bosch the unauthorized biography

It came from the printers the other day. In English, Dutch and Danish for now. German and other languages are to follow. Over four years in the making. Now the promotional gauntlet awaits... 

Pseudocannibalism

Work in progress.

Boschian landscape

The near-final version of the back cover of my book on Hieronymus Bosch. It goes to print in a week.

Nosey neighbours

A new cover design for my book on Hieronymus Bosch. Over the black ceiling will be the title. For now, i'll have to bear with the composition looking rather off-balance. The book goes to print this month!

Falling (2)

A sketch for a painting. I am thinking of a long banner-like format. With Rogier Van der Weijden and Dieric Bouts in mind, i wanted to make some kind of statement on the precariat.