'Kroegtijger' (StraatNieuws, March 2023).
Joshua Peeters is a comic creator and art historian, based in the province of Utrecht. As a prominent member of the art collective De Inktpot, he has participated in several regional comic projects, including the comic magazine De Inktpot (2003-2007) and several comic books related to the history and folklore of the province of Utrecht. His comic feature 'Thinker-on-the-Rock-Mystery' (2003-2012) ran in De Inktpot and the street newspaper StraatNieuws. Among his other comic strips are 'Meester Werk' for Kunst Centraal (2010s), 'Kroegtijger' in StraatNieuws (2012- ), and 'Oscar Wildebeest' for the DUB website of Utrecht University (2020- ).
Early life and career
Joshua Peeters was born in 1973 in Venray, a town in the southern Dutch province of Limburg. The Peeters family eventually moved up north, settling in the city of Groningen. During his childhood, Joshua developed a keen passion for comics and art, an interest he shared with his younger brothers Boris (b. 1974) and Sam (b. 1976). While his brothers eventually attended the Art Academy of Kampen and co-founded the playful Lamelos collective, Joshua Peeters enrolled at Utrecht University to study Art History, as he also had an interest in the theoretical aspects of art. After graduation in 1996, he did some freelance work as an art historian, but missed the joy of drawing. To fill this need, he took a three-day job in the university administration so he could dedicate the rest of his time to creating comics. As his most important influences, Peeters has ranked the classic comic creators Hergé, André Franquin and Carl Barks. An avid fan of Donald Duck weekly during his childhood, most of Peeters' own comic creations have featured anthropomorphic animals. During his studies, Peeters had met his partner Mirjam de Heer, who moved on to work in marketing and communication, often for art-related projects and clients. After several years of living in Utrecht city, the family settled in the town of Zeist in 2012.
'A Thinker-on-the-Rock-Mystery' (De Inktpot #9, February 2006).
De Inktpot
In 2003, Joshua Peeters was one of the early members of De Inktpot, a collective of comic creators active in the Utrecht region, founded by Nico Stolk, Niels Bongers and Albo Helm. Their name was based on the monumental early 20th-century office building of the Dutch Railways in the Utrecht city center, which was nicknamed "The Inkpot" because of its peculiar shape. Between November 2003 and October 2007, De Inkpot released fourteen issues of its own self-titled magazine, to which Peeters was a regular contributor. Other participating artists were Argibald, Mattt Baay, Merel Barends, Rob van Barneveld, Wilma van den Bosch, Jos Collignon, Ype Driessen, Gijs Grob, Ronald van der Heide, Pascal Oost and Michel Sakkers. Since 2007, the Inktpot group has no longer continued their own magazine, but instead worked on several group projects and initiatives focused on Utrechts and its history. Among the later creators who have joined in on Inktpot projects have been Danibal, Jacco de Jager, Frans de Jonge, Nico Lanzuisi, Nina Mathijsen, Milou van Montfort, David den Ouden, André Slob, Wilbert van der Steen, Roos in 't Velt and Lysbeth Zeinstra.
Segment of a strip about heritage made by Joshua Peeters for one of the Inktpot banners during the exposition dedicated to 650 years of the province of Utrecht (2025).
De Inktpot: cultural projects
During cultural events and historical festivities, the Inktpot Foundation has often been present with thematic art projects, of which Joshua Peeters has been a loyal participant. On several occasions, members of the group collaborated in so-called "comic jams". Notable examples have been their "mega comics" on the occasion of the openings of the 2005 and 2008 cultural seasons during the Utrecht UITfeest events. On 14 September 2008, they, for instance, presented their 'Inktpot CS' project, a 15-meter-long chain comic exhibited in Utrecht City Hall. One year later, the Inktpot Foundation released 'Utrecht Centraal' (2009), a collection of work by 20 Utrecht visual artists. While mostly centered in the Utrecht area, the Inktpot collective has also initiated international collaborations. In 2010, some of their artists were represented in three expositions in Brno, Utrecht's Czech sister city, during which a special Czech-language edition of De Inktpot magazine was released. In 2012, Peeters was one of the curators of Turkartoon, an exhibition of 20 contemporary Turkish cartoonists in Utrecht City Hall. Afterwards, the exposition traveled to other cities. In 2025, De Inktpot was commissioned by the Province of Utrecht for an exhibition chronicling the history of the province in ten banners, starting in the year 1375, when the "Stichtse Landbrief" was issued. In this document, the Bishop of Utrecht transferred a part of his power to the nobility and citizens, marking the historical starting point of the province. The banners were on exhibit in 26 municipalities.
Part of Joshua Peeters' contribution to the 'Groot Utrechts Monsterboek' (2023).
De Inktpot: collective books
Since the 2010s, Peeters and the other Inktpot members have worked on several collective comic books, often related to the history and culture of Utrecht. In collaboration with the St. Martin's Foundation, the group produced the comic 'Sint Maarten: Een Levende Legende' (Matrijs, 2011), about the life and legend of Saint Martin, patron saint of the city of Utrecht. In 2016, a French-language edition followed in Tours, the burial place of Saint Martin. The release of the self-published 2013 book 'De Dans van de Gezanten' coincided with the celebration of 300 years of the Peace of Utrecht and collected several stories surrounding the peace negotiations in 1713. In 2015, the group released 'De Halsdoek van Cunera', a comic book dealing with the legend of the patron saint of Rhenen, another town in the province of Utrecht. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Utrecht Monument Fund, De Inktpot released 'De Dwaalgids van Utrecht' (2018), a comic telling the history of seven buildings in the city center of Utrecht.
Also in 2018, De Inktpot produced 'Eerlijk Zullen We Alles Delen!', a comic book gift for all volunteers of the national trade union center FNV. Since the union has 28,000 volunteers, the book had an unprecedentedly large print run for an Inktpot project. De Inktpot's 2022 comic book '1122 - Een Utrechtse Familiekroniek' was released as part of the celebration of 900 years of Utrecht's city rights, and contained seven stories about members of the Utrecht family De Vries. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of De Inktpot itself, the collective released 'Groot Utrechts Monsterboek' (2023), a volume containing monster stories from Utrecht folklore and a selection of older Inktpot comics.
'A Thinker-on-the-Rock-Mystery' (StraatNieuws, March 2012). The police officer wonders why the hare looks so rundown and he explains he went to an exhibition about Inktpot comics in the Czech city, Brno, where he drank too much Pilsener beer.
Comic creations
With his background in art history, Peeters often includes references to art in his funny animal comic strips. For De Inktpot magazine (2003-2007), he created the 'Thinker-on-the-Rock-Mystery' series, a detective spoof starring an anthropomorphic hare. This character was based on the "Thinker on a Rock" statue at Neude square in Utrecht: a six-meter-high hare in the pose of Rodin's classic sculpture 'The Thinker'. Other installments appeared in Margreet de Heer's 'Sprookjes in Strookjes' anthology and Zone 5300 magazine. In 2006, Peeters self-published the comic book collection 'Tales of Mystery and Imagination'. Following its publication in De Inktpot, the 'Thinker-on-the-Rock-Mystery' feature was picked up by Utrechts StraatNieuws, a street newspaper sold in public areas by homeless people.
Transition from 'Thinker-on-the-Rock-Mysteries' to 'Kroegtijger' in StraatNieuws (December 2012).
In 2012, StraatNieuws was canceled, also ending Peeters' feature. When the newspaper was relaunched a couple of months later, Joshua Peeters created another comic strip for them, 'Kroegtijger' (2012- ), starring a bar-hopping tiger visiting all sorts of locations in Utrecht. In addition, comics by Joshua Peeters have appeared in publications related to the educational system, for instance in staff magazines of his employer, Utrecht University, as well as its Faculty of Physics. Since January 2020, Peeters has made the comic strip 'Oscar Wildebeest' for the English-language page of Utrecht University's digital magazine DUB. It stars a wildebeest, whose name is a pun on Irish playwright Oscar Wilde.
'Meester Werk' (January 2013).
During the 2010s, Peeters made the comic strip 'Meester Werk' for Kunst Centraal, an organization helping primary and secondary schools give cultural education a structural place in their curriculum. In 2011, Peeters was commissioned to create the comic book 'Vrede van Utrecht - 1713-2013' as part of a history curriculum about the Treaty of Utrecht.
'Oscar Wildebeest', re-enacting famous Dutch paintings, namely Johannes Vermeer's 'The Milkmaid', Frans Hals' 'The Merry Drinker', Rembrandt van Rijn's 'Titus At His Desk' and Vincent van Gogh's 'The Artist's Bedroom in Arles'.
Other activities
Besides his own cartooning and day job, Joshua Peeters has given workshops in comic drawing for children, for instance for the KunstenHuis cultural centers in Zeist and De Bilt. As one of the artists associated with the foundation Tekenen Voor Kinderen ("Drawing for Children"), he has visited children in hospitals to make drawings for them.
Self-portrait based on a self-portrait by the English painter Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), made for a lecture on how Joshua Peeters uses art in his comics.