The Ephemerist

This illustration by Jan Vanderveken appeared in the Carreer magazine Vacature. It’s about carreers, obviously…

As is the case every other year, last weekend the quiet Flemish town of Turnhout was completely conquered by hordes of die-hard comics fans (well, more like a steady dribble, but there you have it) for the Strip Turnhout Festival. It was a good festival, with some very interesting shows (on Michel Vaillant and Kim Duchateau, amongst others), Scott McCloud doing his spiel and an evening of music accompanied by cartoonists (instead of vice versa).

The Festival also unveiled some very interesting publications, such as the Dutch translation of Matt Madden’s 99 Ways To Tell A Story (translated by yours truly), and a set of postcards by Turnhout City Artist Jan van der Veken (blogged about before), featuring a series of typical Turnhout views. And since the Turnhout people are very nice, we present these cards here, for all you millions who couldn’t make it (thanks, Toon).

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There’s an orphans shortage in the third world ! Or so Jan vander Veken would like you to believe in this cartoon from Rood, the in-house magazine for electronics retailer MediaMarkt.

For the fifth year Patrick Janssens, mayor of Antwerp, is holding an open-air party for the people of his city, to keep contact with his constituents and keep him on their minds as well, I guess. This year, though, there’s also a kids-only party, with adults not allowed. I’m wondering how he’ll get through the doors himself at that occasion…

Anyway, I guess what’s most interesting for us, is that flemish illustrator Jan vander Veken has done two magnificent posters for the events. And they’re here for you to enjoy.

(thanks, Frank)

Jan vander Veken, one of the best Belgian illustrators around, created this masthead for Vacature, a Flemish want ads paper. This seems to have run for a while in the paper, but I only noticed it today. Shame on me.

When I was for working the late and great Men@Work back in 2000-2001, one of the projects we did was the first broadband portal in Belgium, for internet provider Telenet. Our art director asked Jan, who I think had just completed his education, to create the title illustrations for the different departments. The portal has changed its looks (and name) quite a few times in the mean time, but Jan’s drawings still are radiant (click the drawings to open the animated version) :

Jan Van der Veken, a Belgian illustrator famed for the work he did for Drawn & Quarterly, has done a poster for a gig Belgian band Das Pop did in Turnhout.

Jan also did the cover for the most recent issue of Stripgids, which features a showcase of his recent work.

(via Strip Turnhout)