Though the Dutch public broadcasters do occasionally pay attention to comics, any sustained interest in them has been lacking for a long time. This changed last Saturday, with the premiere of the new documentary series Beeldverhaal. It’s intended as an introduction to the wonderful world of comics, each of the eight episodes looking at a different aspect. The episodes themselves are only thirty minutes long, but judging from the first episode the creators manage to fit a lot of information in, without overlaoding the viewer. Much of the credit for this must go to the presenter Jean-Marc van Tol, one part of the team behind the hugely succesful Fokke & Sukke cartoon, who turns out to be a natural interviewer with whom other cartoonists feel comfortable.

But the way the programme is structured is also important. In the first episode the subject was (auto)biographical comics, both a genre that has become huge in the Netherlands in the past decade and a genre that’s easy to get for non-comics readers. The programme started by interviewing Jan Kruis, a cartoonist many people would know from his decades long weekly family strip in Libelle magazine, Jan, Jans en de Kinderen. Jean-Marc van Tol talks with him on how he used his own family as inspiration for the strip, even if the family in the strip is never intended to be his own. From there the programme moves on to Gerrit de Jager, creator of the slightly more edgy but almost as long running Familie Doorzon. This from the start was a comic that was more willing and able to talk about sex and drugs and sausage rolls, though still is a classic gag comic, again partially inspired by de Jager’s own life.

From there on it’s a small step to the autobiographical strip proper, as various creators talk to Jean-Marc about how much of their comics is their own life and how much their representation in the strip has become a separate character. Especially interesting was the interview with Maaike Hartjes, who often uses her partner Mark Hendriks in her comics. Hendriks himself is also a cartoonist and tells how this does not bother him, as he knows the difference between himself and the character “Mark Hendriks”. The only time he really had a problem with the way he was portrayed was when Maaike Hartjes did a radio interview and everything that looked innocent in the strip suddenly seemed very personal when he heard it on the radio…

All in all, a good first episode that promised much for the whole series. Future episodes will tackle superheroes, Dutch comics classic Ollie B. Bommel, Tintin, manga, the underground, Suske & Wiske and the Belgian comics scene and finally the modern newspaper strip. The only problem I’ve had with it so far is that the series is broadcasted late on Saturday night, just when the football is on….

Tom Spurgeon wonders:

Martin Wisse writes about a reader’s suggestion that Love & Rockets is the kind of book you hand people to get them to read comics, which soon moves into that thing I never understand about how the series lacks a natural jumping-on point. I’m beginning to wonder if the old way of encountering TV shows and comics right in the middle of their narratives and then working one’s way backward or not depending if it’s interesting or not has all but gone away. It could be the stumble-upon approach was simply the default method of those that grew up without access to DVD series season collections and comics trades.

It wasn’t so much the lack of a clear jumping on point that stopped me getting into Love & Rockets as just not seeing the original comics anywhere and the collected editions only rarely. And usually when I already had my eye on other comics. Besides which, I am anal enough not to want to read books out of sequence if I can’t help it.

When I were a lad I did get into superhero comics just diving into the deep end. The first American comics I can remember reading were Dutch reprints my uncle had lying around in his small collection. One was a reprint of the start of the Korvac saga in Avengers, which in half an issue introduced some dozen heroes or so, then puts them into space to meet yet another half dozen heroes, with copious allusion to earlier stories. The other one I remember is a Lee-Buscema Fantastic Four story, the Coming of the Over-Mind, again with a lot of characters you’re supposed to know and references to stories you’re supposed to have read. That was enough to intrigue me and once I started buying my own comics, it was yet another guest star filled Avengers spectacular, that crossover with Thor when Surtur’s demons threaten New York.

But all of that was at a time when I could buy one or two comics each week even on the meagre pocket money I got. That’s a bit more difficult if you’re buying comics at three-four dollars a pop, let alone want to buy trade paperback collections or gods forbid, hardcover reprints. Then it is a bit more risky to take a chance at a new title and you do want to get something you are already pretty sure of you’ll enjoy and understand. The more expensive comics become, the less easy it is to stumble over new stuff.