We’ve gotten to know Betje through her funny Substack newsletters. From composting fails to motherhood revelations, her posts will often make you laugh out loud in recognition. When Betje took on our challenge to make a snakebook zine, we had the opportunity to ask her a few questions.
Describe your comics journey—how did you get into making comics?
A combination of writing and drawing has always been the way that I liked to express myself. When I went to art school, I forgot about the writing part and became an illustrator.
It wasn’t until I became a mother that I felt an urge to make comics about my experiences. Motherhood often felt lonely and by posting my comics about it, I connected to other parents and felt less alone.
In 2015, I moved from a small town in the Netherlands to Los Angeles and there in the library I discovered books by Vanessa Davis, Ellen Forney, Jeffrey Brown, Lucy Knisley and other American autobio comic artists. Before that, it had never occurred to me that autobio comics could be more than just a fun outlet for myself.
I fell in love with this art form: autobio comics are often not very polished. They’re made entirely by the person who had the experiences described in the book (other than for instance a movie, that is always made by lots of people and therefore contains multiple perspectives).
The drawings in an autobio graphic novel allow us to see how one person moved their hand to tell us their personal story. I can’t think of an artform that is more intimate than that. Now that we all seem to live in bubbles of like minded people, I find it incredibly meaningful to have this kind of insight into the life of someone I would never meet in person.
How did you develop your voice/unique comics style?
When I was about 15, I used to make comic diaries with a friend (although I had no idea that they were comic diaries at the time). I was the one planning to go to art school, my friend was just making simple drawings to help her tell a funny story. She drew us both as stick figures with different hair styles, and I noticed that her drawings were not only hilarious, they were much better at communicating the story. I started to understand that all the details I was adding were more distracting than helpful. I became obsessed with clear visual communication and started to draw potato shaped bodies with sticks for arms and legs and did that all through art school. Slowly I started to add more details, it took at least a decade before I drew a nose again.
Another pivotal moment was when I started making daily comic journals after I saw the work by the autobio artists I mentioned earlier. I drew one page every single day for a few years and couldn’t afford to spend all day on one drawing. I learned to draw very quickly, got lots of practice in storytelling and facial expressions and my characters became much more dynamic.
What are some of the joys and challenges of making nonfiction comics?
Once you start looking, you’ll see inspiration for stories everywhere. It’s often the stuff that goes wrong that makes great material for comics. That’s how it has helped me see the humor in things that would otherwise make me sad or piss me off. The flipside is that sometimes I have a hard time enjoying a moment because I’m already thinking of how I can turn it into a comic.
Are you working on something now?
Between 2017 and 2022 I drew roughly 1700 comic journals. I just went through all of them and made a selection for a book. It’s called 5500 Miles of Comics. It covers an international move during a global pandemic, but also silly things like finding gum stuck to my shoe or getting a bad haircut. In over 250 pages, it shows the progress I made as an artist over those five years. It’s crowdfunding right now over here: https://zoop.gg/c/5500milesofcomics
The best way to follow my work is through my email newsletter, where I write about life, creativity and climate change.
With over twenty years of experience as an illustrator and cartoonist, Betje has illustrated anything from children’s books to calendars and greeting cards that were sold all over the Netherlands and the United States.
She writes and draws short stories for Tina, one of the longest running comic magazines in the Netherlands and has created cartoons that were shared by Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, 9Gag and many others.
Thanks for reading Autobiographix! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.
