Comiclopedia -- Now More Than Ever

November 2, 2022 12:19 PM

Comiclopedia, once the brainchild of the late Sir Cornelius Kousemaker, the owner of the oldest comics shop in Europe still in business. Did you know there are now 14,000 comics artists counted there by country? From Algeria to Yemen -- will wonders never cease? It's no wonder Kees Kousemaker got himself knighted.

Note: their numbers may be counted but not every comic artist is given an entry. The task is too Herculean meets Sisyphysean. It will never be finished..For instance, clicking on France in the drop down by country menu shows a parenthetical figure of (4005) but so far only 76 have been given an entry. Still, it's nice to.know there is at least one comic artist in Kazakhstan even if their identity is as yet unknown to us.

See also Previously.

Boy, the names in that thread bring back memories.

posted by y2karl (7 comments total)

I found more of our homegrown comic artists there than I knew existed, so it seems fairly comprehensive.
posted by Harald74 at 2:38 AM on November 3, 2022

I'd like to shine a light on Børge Lund, who has managed to run an office-humour strip for years and years, without ever devolving into a batshit crazy right-wing demagogue. And with pretty decent jokes after all these years as well.
posted by Harald74 at 2:43 AM on November 3, 2022

This is a a great resource. I've bought stuff from Lambiek here in Amsterdam including Yoshiharu Tsuge's The Swamp which they got for me from D&Q (Fantastic review of Tsuge's work here) The Comiclopedia entry here.

I also asked them to give me something typically Dutch and they handed me DirkJan which they said was "a window into the Dutch psyche" and well, it is.
posted by vacapinta at 2:54 AM on November 3, 2022

I found more of our homegrown comic artists there than I knew existed, so it seems fairly comprehensive. This was my feeling here too, Harald74 and it seems universally held among all the comments I've read in Comiclopedia across all countries listed in the comments I've read so far.

I also like Ilkka Saanilahti's comment on Børge Lund's page:

Cartoonist knows what he's talking about; even in Finland...

-- that comes across as high praise indeed.

That France has 2050 comic artists, the USA 3291 and the Netherlands 1045 indicates Holland is punching way above its population per capita comix weight, vacapinta. Do you think this is perhaps related its early legalization of cannabis? That makes sense to me. Love that DirkJan cover of the deplaning rhinoceros, by the way.
posted by y2karl at 2:57 AM on November 4, 2022

Gah! Serves me right editing a comment in a five minute window. I should always write them in Notepad or Gmail. I wish we could edit our comments like on Facebook...
posted by y2karl at 3:08 AM on November 4, 2022

When I think about a country punching above its weight in this area, I think of Belgium which has 826 in the Comiclopedia. They do have a Comics Art Museum in Brussels.
posted by vacapinta at 3:21 AM on November 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

So Belgium, I come to find is the more Catholic and also more French part of the former United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Shades of Alsace Lorraine! This explains so much. For one thing, I always wondered how come in Professor T everyone speaks Flemish but say thank you in French. And why Hercule Poirot gets irritated when people assume he is French. Obviously it's the Low Countries combined -- with little thanks to Luxemburg -- who are truly punching above their comic weight at a grand total of 1905.
posted by y2karl at 8:43 PM on November 29, 2022