The Dutch Comic Con was partially sponsored by the publishers of Eppo magazine, the bi-weekly comics zine that seems largely aimed at nostalgic forty and thirty something people remembering its original incarnation. As such the audience at the comic con turned out to be slightly too young for them and the artists signing at their stand were not the busiest, shall we say? Where at a normal convention you’d expect long rows of people interested in autographs or sketches, here the artists outnumbered the fans when I came round with my sketch book. Which gave me the opportunity to talk to Marissa Delbressine for somewhat longer than I’d expected, which is always nice.
Marissa Delbressine is the artist on the action adventure comic Ward which has been running in Eppo and so far has been collected in two albums. Written by veteran scenarist Willem Ritsier, it is the sort of uncomplicated adventure comic that could’ve been published three decades ago too. What I like about is that it’s so family orientated: the series may be named after the mysterious loner Ward, but the real protagonists are the Kessel family: Frank, Isa and their two children, Lonneke and Tom. It’s rare to see any sort of happy but realistic family in a comic like this and especially since the two women graduated from their professional hostage status at the end of the first story, each of the characters has come alive.
Delbressine’s art is a huge part of the appeal of Ward to me. For the strip she draws in the realistic tradition of e.g. a William Vance, but she isn’t afraid to inject a bit of cartoonish exagerration in her figures, especially the faces. What I especially like is the way her characters are immediately recognisable, none of them quite the archetypical action figure or superheroine. I like the way she shows the difference in ages between e.g. Isa and Lonneke: it’s immediately clear that the one has a couple of decades on the other, without having to fall back on the stereotypical signifiers of age like greying hair or wrinkles. Below is the sketch she did of Isa, coloured in and all. More of her work can be found at her Tumblr art portfolio.
