'Victor en Vishnu en het Spookkasteel'.
Jeroen Funke is a Dutch comic creator, multi-disciplinary artist and self-publisher, predominantly active in the Dutch indie comics scene. As a member of the four-piece Lamelos collective (along with Aleks Deurloo, Boris Peeters and Sam Peeters), he was co-responsible for the superhero spoof 'Kaasheld en Poephoofd' (2002-2018), as well as many playful acts on cultural events, for instance the "Cardboard Robot Battles" and chaotic Lamelos auctions. As a versatile solo creator, Funke has been known for his comic zines, embroideries, spatial objects and a wide range of other handmade items, all characterized by their joyful and colorful absurdism. Recurring characters in his own work are the funny animals 'Victor en Vishnu', the triangular Pinky and Henri, the Psychedelic Pizza slice. In addition, Funke has been editor and house illustrator for the magazines BoekieBoekie, Jippo and Brul!.
Early life and career
Jeroen Funke was born in 1976 in Emmen, in the northern Dutch province of Drenthe. During his childhood, he developed a keen passion for comics and pop culture in general, becoming an lifelong collector of figurines. In 1994, he participated in a comic contest organized by Sjors en Sjimmie Stripblad with the theme "Against Racism", and came in third place (numbers one and two were the future comic creators Marc van der Holst and Jan Dirk Barreveld). Between 1995 and 1997, he subsequently provided artwork to the Racism Beat It festival newspaper. In 1994, Jeroen Funke enrolled at the Illustration faculty of the Constantijn Huygens University of the Arts in Kampen (nowadays part of the ArtEZ University of the Arts), while contributing his first comic stories to small press comic magazines like Insanity and Beeldstorm, as well as the street newspaper Z-krant (1998-2002). Among his main influences have been Francisco Ibáñez, Luc Cromheecke and Peter de Wit. In 1999, Funke graduated from the academy in the direction of children's book illustrations. In the following year, he participated in the graduation exhibition again, this time as a comic artist.
'Kaasheld en Poephoofd', by Jeroen Funke.
Lamelos
At the Art Academy of Kampen, Jeroen Funke also became a member of the Lamelos ("Lemmego") collective. In 1997, the group was started by fellow students Aleks Deurloo, Boris Peeters, Sam Peeters and Bouwe Brouwer with the release of the zine 'Lamelos: Mission 1' . By the time they were working on their second issue, Jeroen Funke joined the group, and after their third release, Brouwer left. As a four-piece collective, Lamelos spearheaded the 21st century generation of Dutch indie comic creators, innovating the scene with their playfully absurd and experimental creations and events. Inspired by the 1990s wave of alternative "non-art" cartoonists like Jeroen de Leijer and Marc van der Holst, they tried out different ways of making comics for each release. Sometimes, they alternated on artwork per page or panel, on other occasions they divided the tasks for doing characer art and backgrounds. While some of the Lamelos productions are made by only single or selected members of the group, their body of work remains a collective effort, prevailing over the invidivual contributions of each creator.
During their heyday in the first decade of the 21st century, Lamelos released over a 100 self-published comic books, which they presented and sold at comic conventions and other events. In addition, their comics have appeared in alternative comic magazines like Zone 5300 (2001- ), Gr'nn (2001-2004), Zozolala (2002-2007), MYX (2003-2007), Parcifal (2005-2006) and the football monthly Johan, as well as the online portal Cutie Magazine.
Embroided cover for an English-language edition of 'Kaasheld en Poephoofd' #4.
Lamelos characters
For the short-lived satirical magazine PIM ("Politically Incorrect Magazine", 2002), they made their signature creation 'Kaasheld' ("Cheesehead"). A superhero spoof, the character's head is modelled after one of the least impressive traditions of Dutch gastronomy during birthday celebrations: little blocks of cheese on a cocktail stick adorned with the Dutch flag. While PIM magazine folded after only three issues, Kaasheld proved to be more than a one-time character. Continuing their comic in magazines like Zone 5300, MYX, Vice, Parcifal, Lamelos gave their cheesy superhero the side-kick Poephoofd ("Poophead"), in reference to the general Dutch annoyance of dog poop on the streets. Combined, this typically Dutch superhero team-up fought against their enemies in an absurdistic as well as mundane superhero world. Between 2006 and 2014, MYX publisher Silvester collected the series in five volumes. From 2011 to 2018, the 'Kaasheld en Poephoofd' comic appeared on the back page of the homeless newspaper Haags Straatnieuws, where it replaced Marnix Rueb's 'Haagse Harry'. During this final incarnation, the strip was mostly created by Boris Peeters and Jeroen Funke, who were both living in The Hague at the time. In these new adventures, the Peeters-Funke duo introduced several new superheroes, like Vogelpoephoofd ("Bird poop head"), Konijnenkeutheldje ("Little rabbit poop hero") and Superkut ("Supercunt", a flying vagina with a large tampon inside).
Other characters created by Lamelos are 'Popo & Bobo' (2003-2006), whose absurdistic adventures were published in three silkscreened booklets by Bries. Another recurring character was Professor Fleischmann, a very smart inventor, initially co-created with Olivier Schrauwen. In 2003, their comic strip 'Mak & Luuk' appeared in the music magazine OOR.
Boris Peeters and Jeroen Funke at a Lamelos auction in Lambiek (30 September 2011).
Innovators of indie comics
In their comics, the Lamelos team playfully referred to classic comics like Jacovitti's 'Pinocchio', Frans Piët's 'Sjors en Sjimmie' and Walt Disney's Donald Duck, as well as to characters created by artist friends, such as 'Boer Jelmen' by Matthias Giesen. Additionally, their 'Kaasheld en Poephoofd' books contain guest contributions by fellow creators such as Luc Cromheecke, Floor de Goede, Marc van der Holst, Erik Kriek, Jeroen de Leijer, Michiel van de Pol, Peter Pontiac, Marcel Ruijters, Olivier Schrauwen, Typex, Berend J. Vonk and Wasco. In turn, the Lamelos crew had guest spots in the third 'Scribbly' collection by Jean-Paul Arends (2002), 'Gutsman 10' by Erik Kriek (2008) and Mattt Baay's 'Bunbun: Oh No Not Again' (2013). With friend and colleague Typex, they made 'Spekkie Pik in het Seksbos' (Bries, 2009), a pornographic spoof of Marc van der Holst's 'Spekkie Big'.
Their artwork has been exhibited in several Dutch cities, and also internationally in Angoulême (France), Berlin (Germany), Helsinki (Finland), Budapest (Hungary), Lucca (Italy) and Barcelona (Spain). Mixing their cheerful yet slightly anarchist humor with absurd acts, Lamelos has been a regular presense at comic fairs and cultural festivals like Lowlands and Crossing Border. Starting out with making funny videos for Lowlands TV, Lamelos became an annual Lowlands act with their own Zorklands tent on the festival grounds, where they performed in cardboard costumes. In addition, they have made appearances as their Cheesehero and Poophead personas, and the team became known for their "Apples act", appearing as man-sized apples in bulbous costumes. Especially Jeroen Funke became an avid participant in "Cardboarders projects", where a crowd of creatives collaborate on the construction of playful cardboard building arena's and costumes. One of the most notable Lamelos acts in this field was the "Cardboard Robot Battle", which they have held at festivals in the Netherlands and abroad, often combatting against the members of other comic collectives (for instance in Helsinki and Barcelona).
Notorious were the regular Lamelos auctions, mostly held at the Amsterdam comic store and gallery Lambiek (2006-2011). Amidst much noise and booze, the team auctioned off old, ugly and useless items, with the revenues being invested in new beer, while the unsold items were ceremoniously destroyed. In 2017, Zone 5300 dedicated its issue #116 to the 20th anniversary of the Lamelos collective.
Jeroen Funke designed and painted a cargo bike for comic shop Lambiek, here with store employee Klaas Knol (2011).
Solo career
By the 2010s, the individual Lamelos members had started families and spread out over the Netherlands. This has severely reduced their collective projects, which have remained limited to occasional team-ups. Since the early 2000s, Jeroen Funke has worked on a wide range of solo projects, some more commercial through Hans Buying's Comic House agency, others fully DIY and personal. A jack of all creative trades, he has been active as a comic creator, book maker, self publisher, illustrator, machine embroiderer, screen printer, cardboarder, painter, monster costume maker, muralist, editor and collector. Living in The Hague, Jeroen Funke and his wife, illustrator Talitha Dijkhuizen, have a fully equiped home studio with a Riso printer, embroidery machine, creasing machine, button makers, an electric and an analog cutting machine, laser printer/copier, cutting plotter, booklet maker, heat press, screen printing table and binder, among other things.
'A Dog, A Bird', from a set of six tiny comic booklets.
Besides a wide range of homemade print productions, Funke's artwork has appeared in magazines like NRC Next, OOR, Okki, Jippo, Zone 5300, DUF, De Ontdekkers, BoekieBoekie and Brul!, and also in international anthology publications like Kuti Kuti (Finland), Kuš! (Latvia), L'Artichot (France), La Cruda (Spain), Komikaze (Croatia), Parcifal (Belgium), Farfelu (Belgium), Glömp (Finland), Amenità (Italy) and Kutlul (The Netherlands/Germany). For NL20, a free cultural weekly from Amsterdam, Funke made the comic strip 'Pjotr & Pepper' (2005-2006). For years, Jeroen Funke has been one of the most recognizable creators of the Dutch indie comics scene, present at nearly every Dutch comic festival and event, and participating in a great many collective exhibitions and art projects. In 2018 and 2019, he had his "One Book A Month" plan, a subscription-based initiative for which he produced a stand-alone handmade booklet each month, constantly switching formats, characters or production methods. After one year, he had subscribers in twelve different countries.
Also in 2018, Funke began his own Etsy shop, through which he has been selling his small press comics and art books (some very tiny: 2 x 2.9 cm/0.79 x 1.14 inch), as well as mini-birthday calendars, stickers, patches and pins with funny characters (a walking gift or brick of Lego), T-shirts, buttons, postcards and other items.
Style and characters
Even though they are wide and varied, all of Jeroen Funke's creative endeavors share an overall positivity, witty playfullness and surreal imagery with bright colors. Often originating from his participations in the annual 24 Hour Comics events, recurring characters in his work are strangely anthropomorphic. For instance the stacked quadruple triangle Pinky, who mostly appears in space adventures. Another oddball is Henri, the "psychedelic pizza slice". However, Funke's signature characters are funny animals of undetermined species, the bespectacled bear-like creature Victor and the half-bird/half-monkey Vishnu. Ever since their creation in Funke's 24 Hour Comics and self-published zines, they have starred in many of his magazine features (in BoekieBoekie, Yacob Magazine, Zone 5300, Okki, Brul!, etc.) and participations in collective projects. In their adventures, basically everything can happen. Some are set in a seemingly normal world, others in fairy tale settings or in purely psychedelic pastures, while the weirdest walking and talking creatures and objects can come by. Between 2010 and 2014, the 'Victor & Vishnu' publications from several magazines were collected in five books, published subsequently by Jean-Marc van Tol's Catullus imprint and then Strip2000.
Victor & Vishnu vs. Pinky.
Magazine work
Since the late 1990s, Jeroen Funke has been a contributing editor and creative engine behind a variety of magazines. From 1999 until its demise in 2018, he was a part of the editorial team and the house illustrator of BoekieBoekie, a quarterly magazine initiated by Jet Manrho in Rotterdam, promoting art and literature among children aged 8 to 13. For several years, the magazine was the homebase of the 'Victor & Vishnu' comic. Another BoekieBoekie artist was Boris Peeters.
'Strippo' (Jippo #10, 2007-2008).
The second half of the 2000s, Jeroen Funke was a prominent artist for the school magazines of publisher Malmberg. In 2005, he was part of the think tank for the relaunch of Jippo magazine, which was originally published between 1974 and 1985. Aimed at the lower grades of primary school, the new Jippo (2005-2008) prominently featured Jeroen Funke art, starting with an opening spread with mascot characters Joost and Meike, as well as the teacher Miss Kriebel, the "Meddler" ("Bemoeibeest") and Professor Uhm. Co-created with Willem Lagerwaard of Studio Kloek, these characters reappeared throughout each issue on the editorial pages, and also had their own 'Strippo' comic on the backpage. Other comics in the magazine were 'Koen' by Herman Roozen and ckoe, 'Nino & Nena' by Margreet de Heer and Floris De Smedt and 'Swamp & Zo' by Floris Oudshoorn.
When in 2008 Jippo was canceled again, Jeroen Funke transfered to Malmberg's toddlers' magazine Okki, for which he had occasionally made illustrations before. Again, the title had a full make-over, for which Funke provided the pantomime back-cover comic 'Victor & Vishnu op de Vies Planeet' ("Victor & Vishnu on the Dirty Planet", 2008-2009).
'Op De Viesplaneet' (Okki #1, 26 September 2008).
Brul!
In 2018, Jeroen Funke and fellow comic creator Tommy A launched a crowdfunding campaign for their new children's magazine Brul! ("Roar!"). After releasing a dummy issue in the spring of 2018, the quarterly title was officially launched a year later, in the spring of 2019. Quickly, the two creators were joined on the editorial board by Tonio van Vugt and Karida van Bochove, as well as graphic designer Roel Venderbosch. Intended as a fresh, funny and slightly unconventional alternative to the mainstream children's magazines in the Netherlands, Brul! has offered a creative playground to a wide range of comic talent. Created by Jeroen Funke, its mascots are the bore Brul, the worm Ollie and the bird Mees, who appear in editorial illustrations and comic stories, including the backcover feature.
'Brul!' (Brul! #4, Winter 2020).
Besides running episodes of Jeroen Funke's own 'Victor & Vishnu' and Tommy A's 'Prins Kat', Brul! has opened its pages to comic creators such as Rob van Barneveld, Karida van Bochove, Kees de Boer, Brecht Evens, Floor de Goede, Marc van der Holst, Yvonne Jagtenberg, Jeroen de Leijer, Boris Peeters, Michiel van de Pol, Emma Ringelberg, Yasmin Sheikh, Lae Schäfer, Anne Stalinski, Alex Turk, Roel Venderbosch and Wasco. In addition, the magazine has run translated comics by international creators, richly illustrated text stories by an ever-changing range of writers and illustrators, as well as editorial columns and articles on hobby collections, pop culture and art history by Frits Jonker, Milan Hulsing and Kjell Knudde, among other people.
Covers for Brul! #5 (2020) and VPRO Gids #6, 2026.
Graphic contributions
Artwork by Jeroen Funke has been featured in a great many collective projects. In 2006, he was one of the contributing artists to Menno Kooistra's first 'Bloeddorst' horror anthology. Three years later, he made the illustrations for the children's book 'Graaf Sandwich' by Jan Paul Schutten (Nieuw Amsterdam, 2009). Funke was also one of the contributing artists to 'Mooi is Dat' (2010) and 'Film Fanfare' (2012, 'New Kids Turbo'), two anthologies with comic interpretations of Dutch literary works and movies, respectively. In addition, he was one of the comic creators for the first volume of the anthology series 'Op Missie' (Strip2000, 2014), in which comic artists tell the true life stories of war veterans. His comics have additionally appeared in anthology magazines like Jeroen de Leijer's Wobby and Wasco's Aline.
Outside of print media, Funke provided the graphic design for an episode of Jean-Marc van Tol's TV documentary series about comics, 'Beeldverhaal'. In November 2015, Jeroen Funke and Dace Sietina were artists in residence at the Gouda art center De Ruimte van Rolf, where they worked on a collaborative comic story. In April 2017, Funke participated in one of Wasco's art projects at the WGKunst Gallery in Amsterdam. He and nine other artists worked side by side, both collectively and solo, on the creation of monsters and other gruesome and weird creatures. The result was several paintings, murals, collage artworks, illustrations and comic strips, which were on exhibit at the gallery afterwards. An overview magazine called Monster was published as well. The other participating artists were Ge Wasco, Anne Stalinski, Merel Barends, Tommy A, Peter de Wit, René Windig, Dace Sietina, Lae Schäfer and Eliane Gerrits.
'Spruitjes, Bier, Leverworst', award-winning comic essay by Jeroen Funke.
Recognition
Artwork by Jeroen Funke, either solo or with Lamelos, has been featured in group exhibitions at comic festivals in Barcelona, St. Petersburg, Lucca and Luzern. In February 2017, he was part of the exhibition 'Van het een komt het ander' in the Public Library of The Hague, along with children's book illustrators Kees de Boer and Thé Tjong-Khing.
In 2011, Jeroen Funke was awarded the 1,500 euros Jan Hanlo Media Essay Prize for his 'Victor & Vishnu' strip 'Spruitjes, Bier, Leverworst'. In 2018, he won the StripGrafiekPrijs for his booklet 'The Lonely Cowboy', that was part of his "One Book A Month" series. Awarded during the Stripdagen Haarlem comics festival, the jury consisted of Joost Swarte and the Canadian comic creator Guy Delisle, the festival's guest of honor. Second and third prize went to Sam Peeters and B.Carrot, respectively. Internationally, Jeroen Funke won second prize at the 2026 Fumetto International Comic Competition of the comic festival in Luzern, Switzerland.
Jeroen Funke among his merchandise at a comics festival.