Two Single Images

Monday Cartoon Day.

Last week the third season of 'my' comedy series S1ngle started on the Dutch Net 5 network. I put the possessive pronoun between quotes, because these things ar always done together with other people and in this case, this is particulary true. S1ngle was already a succesful newspaper strip when my writing partner Wim Bax suggested that I should use my 25 year old relationship with it's authors Hanco Kolk and Peter de Wit to turn it into a television series. Wim and I devised a concept and took it to the producer, FourOne Media, who suggested we team up with producer/director and former casting mogul Job Gosschalk. Job took on the project as a showrunner, delivered a great cast and in the end directed 28 of the 32 episodes. He also lead us in plotting the series, after which Wim wrote the episodes and I suggested rewrites. When I got ill last year Job and Wim took over completely and finished off the series while I was living it up in hospital. So to say that I am now watching the episodes with mixed feelings is an understatement. I am feeling pride for the accomplishments of everyone involved, humbleness (if there is such a word), joy at the success of it all and an intense desire not to talk about it too much.

This week, it was also announced that the series will be running on the new Sixx network in Germany and that negotiations are underway to bring the serie to America. Like Net 5, Sixx is a network aimed at females and it wouldn't surprise me if S1ngle wound up on Lifetime on of these days.

To celebrate, I have here the first two pages of a six page article Hanco Kolk did for a Dutch weekly. It shows off the series and the three actrices playing the main characters as well as Hanco's wonderful style. The other pages told the story of how the series was sold, but they were a bit more difficult to translate without ruining the art (which is also why I let the Dutch head of the article intact). I still might do so at a later date, if only to show Hanco's sympathetic caricatures of me, Job and Wim.

The new (third) S1ngle series will start soon on the dutch NET 5 network. Still the best scoring series they ever had, even in the daily repeats this summer. We did 34 episodes in 16 months. To get in the mood, here is the song from the series as sung by the three stars in the final episode. s1ngle is a comedy-drama series about three girld who wouls never have been friends if the didn't have the same job. They work in a hospital, but it is not a hospital series. Ans, more importantly, they are not photo models. The song is illustrated with some of the best moments from season two. The promo for the new season should be up somewhere this month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGkdVZJ-VcU&feature=PlayList&p=D400004B8A8FE532&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=44

Many a Brave...

Thursday newpaper story day.

Still very busy at work, so I will have to keep it down to one week of Jeanie this week. I hope to make it up to you this weekend.









I have to thank John K. for linking to my blog, which led to an alltime high in visitors and downloads. I hope I will be able to keeo up the quality of my posts. I have more than enough stuff lying around. How about Irv spector's Coogie? Or some ultra rare stuff by Mel Casson, Mel Lazerus and Mel, er, Al Capp? I will also be on the lookout of comic strip features started by magazine cartoonists such as Dave Gerard and Herb Gardner. Not to mention the huge backlog of material I am gathering from the early career of Dik Browne (although I am still looking for samples of Hi and Lois from 1954 to 1956) or the missing funny sf strip Warren Tuffs did inbetween Casey Ruggles and Lance. And that's just if I limit myself to the funny material. I am also a huge student and collector of the more serious strips of the 1950's. There's all sorts of stuff I'd like to show you from comic book artists who turned to newspaper strips and the other way around. Jerry Robinson deserves a whole week to himself and I'd love to give some attention to Ray Bailey, the early comic book work of Dan Barry, Mike Sekowsky, Frank Gaiacoia, Gene Colan, George Roussos and Mort Meskin. But we'll get there when we get there. I am in this for the long run.

If I can keep it up. Some of the regular visitors here are Dutch cartoonists I met on a closed comic artist chat group over here, where I am a regular because I have been known to write comic strips now and again. But my main job is as a television writer. I am currently working on the adaptation of a dutch newspaper strip called S1ngle. There will be twelve episodes in the first season (a normal number for Dutch television stations, who have to do everything on a budget) which will be shot from september. We are currently finalizing the first six episodes, so as you can imagine that leaves me very little time.

I am not quite sure how to ad a link to youtube, but here is the promo we made for the network to show to the press. It starts with a special illustration from the strip, which I intend to show you later, as soon as I have translated a couple of my favorite episodes. The artwork alone will be sure to impress you.

The YouTube address is: http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=n_BlmCATnqg&feature=related