Libelle #50/1970
Libelle #50/1970 (cover-dated December 12, 1970) marks the very first appearance of 'Jan, Jans en de kinderen' — the debut strip in the Dutch weekly women's magazine Libelle that introduced the Tromp family and their household pets to Dutch readers for the first time. The issue simultaneously debuts every character in the catalog: father Jan Tromp, mother Jans Tromp, daughters Karlijn and Catootje, the red tomcat Edgar Allen Poes (De rode kater), and the dachshund Lotje — all appearing together in a single inaugural page. In a medium dominated by adventure and youth comics, Jan Kruis demonstrated that a grounded, slice-of-life family strip aimed at an adult women's-magazine readership could become one of the most culturally resonant comics in Dutch history, inspiring a whole genre of Dutch 'family strips' and introducing language — 'je-weet-wel-kater' and 'hoi, pipeloi' — that entered everyday Dutch usage.
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The strip came about when Peter Middeldorp, editor-in-chief of Libelle and a former editor at the Belgian comics magazine Robbedoes, approached Jan Kruis in 1970 with the commission for a weekly one-page strip. Kruis drew directly on his own family life: his two daughters Leontine and Andrea were the real-world models for Karlijn and Catootje respectively, his wife and household became the template for the Tromps, and a real large red tomcat and a real dachshund living with the Kruis family provided the animal characters. Kruis had previously drawn a thematically related strip called 'Gregor' — about a father in a two-child family — for Hergé's Kuifje magazine in the mid-1960s, which is widely regarded as the direct creative precursor to this strip. Libelle was published by VNU Tijdschriften at the time of the debut issue.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of 'Jan, Jans en de kinderen': the strip debuted on 12 December 1970 in Libelle, issue #50 of that year.
- Simultaneous first appearance of the entire core cast: Jan Tromp (father), Jans Tromp (mother), Karlijn Tromp (older daughter), Catootje Tromp (younger daughter), De rode kater / Edgar Allen Poes (the red tomcat), and Lotje (the dachshund).
- Creator: Jan Kruis (Rotterdam, 8 June 1933 – Mantinge, 19 January 2017) wrote and drew the strip solo from launch until 1999, when he handed it to Studio Jan Kruis.
- Catootje Tromp is modelled on Kruis's real daughter Andrea Kruis, who later also became a comic artist; Karlijn is modelled on his daughter Leontine.
- De rode kater's full name — Edgar Allen Poes — is a pun on the American poet Edgar Allan Poe; the character's defining trait (being neutered) is the source of his perpetual melancholy and philosophising.
- The strip was commissioned by Libelle editor-in-chief Peter Middeldorp, who had previously known Kruis from his time at the Belgian comics magazine Robbedoes.
- Collected album editions began in 1972, published by the small independent house of Joop Wiggers after VNU Tijdschriften — Libelle's own parent publisher — had declined to release them.
- Jan Kruis received the Stripschapprijs in 1980 and was awarded the inaugural Marten Toonder Prize in November 2009 for his entire body of work; he was also knighted in the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 1996.
Cast · 6 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
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Jan probeert na het eten een uiltje te knappen.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).