Some links to comics blogs you can’t read anyway*

Dutch cartoonist Jean-Marc van Tol, off off Fokke & Sukke fame, has started a series of Youtube comics reviews, possibly as a warmup for Beeldverhaal, his new television series about comics debuting this October. He’s done entries on Rabaté, Willy “Urbanus” Linthout and Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World:



I agree with Michael Minneboo, that the calm but enthusiastic way in which Jean-Marc van Tol talks about comics is great and makes you want to run out and buy them immediately, even though I can’t stand Clowes at the best of times.

Another recent discovery is the blog of IJsbrand Oost, a relatively new cartoonist (to me at least) who works in a ligne claire style seriously influenced by Henk Kuijpers. As with Jean-Marc van Tol, here you have somebody who obviously understands his craft very well and –much rarer– knows how to explain it to you as well, as in the post in which he tells how he evolved his drawing techniques. These insanely detailed drawings turn out to be done directly on paper first, with the background, foreground and characters drawn separately, then scanned in and manipulated on the pc before being printed out and inked on heavier paper, with the colouring once again done on the computer. I love reading this sort of thing.

(* Except for Reinder, Branko and Michel)