Tom Poes Weekblad #1/1947-1948
Tom Poes Weekblad #1, dated 28 November 1947, marks the launch of the first dedicated comics weekly produced entirely by a Dutch studio — Toonder Studio's — in post-war Netherlands, giving the medium a home-grown periodical at a time when Belgian rivals Spirou and Tintin were becoming market leaders. The debut issue brought together Tom Poes and Olivier B. Bommel — two of the most culturally embedded characters in Dutch literary history — in a weekly format for the first time, alongside the very first appearance of Henk Sprenger's science-fiction aviation serial Piloot Storm, which would run for 85 stories across 26 years. Beyond its flagship features, the magazine served as a launch pad for an entire generation of Dutch comics talent, with studio artists publishing under their own names for the first time, making this first issue a watershed document in the professionalization of Dutch comics.
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Marten Toonder conceived the weekly after encountering an Argentine biweekly magazine built around the popular strip Paturozo during a visit to South America; the format convinced him that a studio-owned periodical could both serve as a showcase for Toonder Studio's talent and build a new readership of children. The magazine launched on 28 November 1947 with the first 32 issues printed on the high-quality copper rotogravure presses of Rotogravure in Leiden, giving the early run a noticeably superior print quality compared to later volumes. Studio artists — previously required to produce work anonymously for the collective enterprise — were permitted for the first time to develop and sign their own original strip features, a significant shift in the studio's creative culture. The weekly ran for 188 issues until 30 June 1951, after which its content was partly recycled into the Belgian weekly Pum Pum.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated 28 November 1947; published by Toonder Studio's — the first issue of the Netherlands' first studio-owned comics weekly.
- First in-magazine appearance of Tom Poes and Olivier B. Bommel in weekly periodical format; both characters had originated in Marten Toonder's newspaper serial in De Telegraaf beginning 16 March 1941.
- First appearance of Piloot Storm, the Dutch science-fiction aviation serial created by Henk Sprenger (1919–2005); the debut story, 'Het verijdelde complot,' ran across issues #1–13 (1947–1948).
- Piloot Storm was a reworking of Sprenger's earlier wartime aviation strip Arend Stork, with the protagonist's name changed and science-fiction elements progressively introduced; the series ultimately comprised 85 stories published through 1973.
- The first 32 issues — including #1 — were printed on copper rotogravure presses in Leiden, giving them markedly better production quality than any subsequent volumes.
- The magazine functioned as a try-out platform: Toonder Studio artists published original features under their own names for the first time, with several strips (including Simpelman, Blix Kater, and Filo Fop) later syndicated internationally.
- Heer Bommel himself contributed an editorial foreword to the first issue — a characteristically in-universe touch reflecting how deeply the franchise had already penetrated Dutch popular culture by 1947, with some sixteen book collections, theater productions, and licensed merchandise already in circulation.
- Between 2009 and 2012, publisher Boumaar issued all 188 numbers in 13 full-colour facsimile volumes; Volume 1 (ISBN 978-90-77777-62-6) reprints issues #1–17 from the 1947–1948 period.
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Eureka ontwikkelt een elektrische aansteker voor zijn sigaar.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).