Pep #27/1973
Pep #27/1973 is a representative issue from the most creatively fertile stretch of Oberon's weekly Dutch anthology magazine, a period — roughly 1970 to 1975 — that is widely recognized as the peak years of Pep as the leading comics magazine in the Netherlands. Its contents illuminate the magazine's hybrid editorial identity: it mixed long-running imported American newspaper strips, translated and rechristened for Dutch readers, alongside an expanding roster of original Dutch-created serials. The presence of both Flippie Flink and Sarge Snorkel in a single 1973 issue is a small but tangible record of how thoroughly Mort Walker's Camp Swampy cast had embedded themselves into Dutch popular culture — Beetle Bailey had appeared in Pep since its very second issue in 1962, making it one of the oldest and most consistent presences in the magazine's run.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Pep launched on 6 October 1962 under De Geïllustreerde Pers in Amsterdam, explicitly targeting readers who had outgrown Donald Duck but still wanted comics. From issue six of 1972 onward, the publisher credit shifted to Oberon BV in Haarlem — a newly formed umbrella division created from the merger of De Geïllustreerde Pers and De Spaarnestad under the VNU publishing group — and that is the imprint under which Pep #27/1973 was produced. Frans Buissink served as a key editorial figure at Oberon overseeing these youth titles during this period. The magazine ran approximately 48 full-color pages at this point in 1973, a page count that would be reduced starting in 1974 when the 'Peptoe' supplementary format was introduced.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Pep was a weekly Dutch comics anthology published from 6 October 1962 through September 1975, at which point it merged with Sjors to form the new magazine Eppo.
- From issue #6 of 1972 onward, the publisher of record was Oberon BV, based in Haarlem — a VNU division formed by the merger of De Geïllustreerde Pers and De Spaarnestad.
- Flippie Flink is the Dutch localization name for Beetle Bailey, Mort Walker's American newspaper comic strip (debut September 4, 1950); Beetle Bailey appeared in Pep from the magazine's second issue in 1962 and was one of its most enduring features.
- Sarge Snorkel (Sergeant First Class Orville P. Snorkel) is Beetle Bailey's volcanic-tempered platoon sergeant, first introduced into Walker's strip in 1951 shortly after Beetle enlisted in the U.S. Army.
- In the Netherlands, Beetle was renamed 'Flippie Flink' — one of many country-specific name adaptations the strip received globally (e.g., 'Knasen' in Sweden, 'Jens Fup' in Denmark, 'Billy' in Norway).
- According to the Dutch collector resource De Pepsite, 44 Flippie Flink installments appeared in Pep across the whole of 1973 — the single highest annual count for the strip during Pep's entire run — reflecting a marked surge in the feature's presence in that year.
- Pep #27/1973 was published during the acknowledged high point of the magazine (c. 1970–1975), when it balanced imported strips (Asterix, Beetle Bailey, Blueberry) with homegrown Dutch creations such as Peter de Smet's De Generaal and Martin Lodewijk's Agent 327.
- When Pep folded in 1975, its successor Eppo continued to publish many of the same features; the Beetle Bailey/Flippie Flink strip later received its own standalone Dutch album series published by JuniorPress beginning in 1984.
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