Dick Matena


Dick Matena is a Dutch comics writer and cartoonist. He has also published under the pseudonyms A. den Dooier, John Kelly and Dick Richards. He has made several kinds of comics, from humor comics to erotic comics, but is best known for his comic book adaptations of famous literary novels.

Biography

Toonder studios

At the age of 17 he starts working at the Toonder studios as volunteer. In the beginning he helped with the drawing projects of Tom Poes and Panda.
In 1968 his first own drawn comic appeared in the comic magazine Pep.

Freelance period

In 1964 Dick Matena started working as a freelancer, in the beginning mainly for the Toonder studios. He drew his own comic Polletje Pluim.
For Pep he drew De Argonautjes and Ridder Roodhart. He wrote scenarios for the Macaroni's and Blook.
During the period he worked for the cartoon magazine Eppo, he wrote four scenarios for the comic Storm and under his pseudonym Dick Richards eight scenarios for the comic De Partners, drawn by Carry Brugman.
In 1977 Matena drew his first realistic comic Virl.

Foreign period

From 1982 until 1984 he lived in Spain and worked for Selleciones Illustrades.
For the comic magazine Titanic, he created two starship stories.
After his move to Belgium he created the comics De laatste dagen van Edgar Allan Poe, Gauguin en Van Gogh and Mozart & Casanova.

Spin-off Storm and Beyond

With stories by Martin Lodewijk Dick Matena drew three spin-off comics of Storm. The series of these Storm albums are called Kronieken van de Tussentijd. He used his pseudonym John Kelly at first; the last comic is published with his own name.
In 1997 he started again with the comic Tom Poes. Two stories were published in the Dutch version of the magazine Donald Duck.

Comics of Dutch literature

Matena draws comics of classical Dutch literary books. In 2003 he won the Bronzen Adhemar award. He was the first non-Flemish comics artist to receive this honor.

Awards

Storm (with Don Lawrence)

The Chronicles of the Deep World
Chronicles of Meanwhile

Starship (''Sterrenschip'')

Virl

Alias Ego

The evenings (''De Avonden'') (Gerard Reve)

Crew Cut (''Kort Amerikaans'') (Jan Wolkers)

One Shots