more duck findings

ALFRED as famous archaeologist/adventurer for a calendar as part of the duck-merchandise in 1989. below HARALD and I caricatured each other while we were working on ROGER RABBIT at amblin.

© van veen / siepermann / bacher

alfred

digging through boxes and drawers I found some historic ‘ducks’, probably from 1988 / 1989, – ALFRED JODOCUS KWAK. the concept had been developed by dutch entertainer HERMAN VAN VEEN, HARALD SIEPERMANN and myself did all the thousands of drawings for 3 comic books, 4 educational books, the storyboards and style-designs for a 52-episode tv series ( produced in japan ) as well as tons of drawings for the connected merchandise ( about 400 different products available in some bigger stores and QUELLE at that time ). there was no photoshop, it all had to be drawn with steel-nibs and chinese ink on some white sheets called ‘paper’ and colored with extremely life threatening chemicals out of funny looking felt-sticks. I know from my students that these little unknown details have to be explained to a younger generation…

© van veen / siepermann / bacher

cover

during the time in 1989, when DAAN JIPPES and I worked together on the pre-production of disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in L.A., DAAN helped me out with some merchandise illustrations for ALFRED J.KWAK. blue-pencil sketch and inking by the master himself, illustration size about 20 x 20 cm.

© harlekijn, van veen, siepermann, bacher

why-a-duck

from 1985 until 1991 I was one of the team-members who brought ALFRED J.KWAK alive. the others were HARALD SIEPERMANN and dutch entertainer HERMAN VAN VEEN. in some earlier posts I talked about the comic- and tv-series and how it happened. here now are some rare pieces, the first planned comic cover, some comic strip samples and calendar illustrations.

© harlekijn / herman van veen / harald siepermann / hans bacher

more ducks…

all artwork from the comic strip series THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE DUCK ALFRED J.KWAK

© van veen, siepermann, bacher

ducks + moles

the artwork below is from 1986, from my collaboration with HARALD SIEPERMANN on our comic strip series THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE DUCK ALFRED J.KWAK. it started just for fun and became an adventure with three comic books, published in germany, netherlands, belgium and france, and a 52 episodes TV-series on the air in about 20 countries.
harald developed the characters based on a story of HERMAN VAN VEEN and did the pencil sketches. I inked them and added the color and the environment. it is all feltpen and some gouache.

© van veen, siepermann, bacher

a duck story 1

sometime in spring 1986 the ALFRED J. KWAK duck adventure began. HARALD SIEPERMANN, who had been a student in my class at the folkwang school/essen university, had joined our studio of 4 crazy artists, the mad t party, in duesseldorf. he had been working for a while on a comic strip concept based on a story by HERMAN VAN VEEN, a dutch entertainer. we were discussing all different stylistic solutions and I did just for fun a first sample page, testing an inking technique and felt-pen coloring. more pages followed…
these fun-stylistic researches about a dutch duck turned very soon into a comic strip, and in feb 1987 we had our first comic published in holland. harald was the writer ( based on herman van veen’s story ) and character design artist, who
came up with the pencil sketches for the strip. I did the ink version, the layout and BG’s, as well as the overall color. what had started just for fun, turned into a major adventure, when a dutch/finnish producer of tv-series, DENNIS LIVSON, saw the comic and decided to create 52 – 25 min tv-episodes. we went to tokyo, where it all was animated and were getting stressed with all the tons of work that was dumped on the 2 of us. the creation of about 500 characters, the stylistic BG-design, and some storyboard examples to get our ideas across to the far-east studio.
everything was happening at the same time, in 1988/89, where I got involved paralell to all that in the disney production of beauty and the beast. after the duck-tv premiere in europe in 1989 the real work started – all the merchandise that came on the market had to be designed and supervised, over 400 articles.
here are some memories…

© van veen, siepermann, bacher

a duck

amazing, it’s already 20 years ago! 1989 a cartoon television series started in the netherlands, later all over europe, THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE DUCK ALFRED J.KWAK . it was based on a dutch theatre show by HERMAN VAN VEEN and was produced by telecable benelux. inbetween there had been a comic strip series developed by HARALD SIEPERMANN and myself. we were of course involved in the production of the animated version and the following merchandise circus. apparently the series has been broadcast in many countries and has been dubbed and subtitled in dutch, french, japanese, greek, english, italian, spanish, hebrew, arabic, hungarian, finnish, serbian, polish, german, swedish, danish, icelandic, chinese, and norwegian. our team, herman, harald and me got awarded in 1991 with the GERMAN GOLDEN CAMERA for the creation of the series. it’s all history…

© van veen, siepermann, bacher