Eppo #19/1978

History

Eppo launched in October 1975 as publisher Oberon's solution to the declining circulations of two predecessor weeklies, Pep and Sjors, with Martin Lodewijk appointed art director alongside editor-in-chief Frits van der Heide; together they designed a line-up of largely new Dutch series supplemented by acquired foreign material. Lodewijk was simultaneously writing and drawing Agent 327 for the magazine and, by 1977–1978, had pushed the strip into its most experimental register with the two-part Zondagskind/Zevenslaper story cycle. Robert van der Kroft had been drawing the revived Sjors & Sjimmie gag strip for the magazine since its first issue, and in 1977 the writing partnership of Wilbert Plijnaar and Jan van Die took over scripting duties, giving the strip the creative chemistry it would carry for the next decade. The Belgian Leonardo strip (original title: Léonard, by Turk & De Groot) arrived in Eppo after its original French vehicle, the Achille Talon magazine, ceased publication around 1976, making Eppo its primary Dutch-language home throughout the late 1970s.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Eppo #19/1978 carries the final instalment of 'Dossier Zevenslaper,' the Agent 327 serial that ran across Eppo #47–52/1977 and #1–5, #8–19/1978, as confirmed by the Grand Comics Database.
• Agent 327 — secret agent Hendrik IJzerbroot — was created, written, and drawn by Martin Lodewijk; the character debuted in Pep #21 in 1966 before moving to Eppo when Pep merged with Sjors in 1975.
• Dossier Zevenslaper is noted as the most science-fictional story in the Agent 327 canon to that date, incorporating Bermuda Triangle lore, references to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, and ideas drawn from Erich von Däniken; it was collected as Oberon album #3 in 1978.
• Sjors and Sjimmie — the Dutch adaptation of the Perry Winkle character from Martin Branner's Winnie Winkle — were by 1978 drawn by Robert van der Kroft in a one-page gag format and scripted by the newly installed team of Wilbert Plijnaar and Jan van Die, the creative partnership that would define the strip for a decade.
• The Kolonel (Colonel Snork) is a recurring foil and guardian figure in Sjors & Sjimmie, reintroduced in his modern grumpy-war-veteran characterisation by Jan Kruis in 1969 and carried forward into van der Kroft's Eppo version.
• Leonardo (and his long-suffering apprentice Basiel) is a Belgian gag strip created by Turk (Philippe Liégeois) and De Groot (Bob de Groot), inspired by Leonardo da Vinci; after its original French-language magazine folded circa 1976, the Dutch version ran in Eppo, making the weekly its primary home in the Netherlands.
• Eppo was published by Oberon (the youth-publications division of VNU) and, at its 1975 launch, printed 250,000 copies per issue, rising to approximately 300,000 by 1976 — placing it among the largest Dutch comics weeklies of the era.
• Martin Lodewijk served as art director of Eppo from its founding, and received the Stripschapprijs — the Netherlands' highest comics honour — in 1978, the same year Dossier Zevenslaper was serialised and collected.

Cast · 7 characters

Full credits

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