Haarlem comics con 03: Amanda Majoor

Amanda Majoor (left) sketching, with moral support

If you’re very lucky at a con you can discover a major new talent you never would’ve come across otherwise, somebody like Amanda Majoor. A graduate from the Zwolle artschool, she did her thesis on the intersections between comics and music (see below). Unfortunately it hasn’t been published yet, but from what I could see of it leafing through it, it should be interesting. Amanda’s main comics project, which she ultimately would like to publish as a graphic novel, follows on from this interest in music and comics and would be about the socalled “Swingjugend” in forties Hamburg.

Swing und Comics. This needs to be properly published.

(Short historical recap as I understand it. Swingjugend were young German jazz/swing fans, which was of course verboten in the Third Reich; Hamburg was always one of the most leftwing cities in Germany and not very known to be Nazi loving. Enough scope for a graphic novel, I think.)

panel from the Swingjugend project

Currently Amanda’s busy doing research and tryouts for this project, but she also does other work on the side, like a comic and interview for the FML website. She blogs at Swing und Bratwurst and has an art portfolio at Flickr.


part of a page drawn by charcoal

Her artwork has an understated elegance I like a lot, as I do the “retro” forties styling. It’s also interesting to see her muted use of colour and greyscales. It fits the slightly melancholic mood of her artwork. Of course I asked her for a sketch as well and below is what I got.

sketch by Amanda Majoor

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