Franka
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
comic book series drawn and written since the mid 1970s by the graphic artist Henk Kuijpers
Henk Kuijpers
Henk Kuijpers is a comics artist most famous for his Franka series.-Comics:*Franka, 21 comic albums*Bars, 2 albums...
. The principal character is a strong female Dutch sleuth who solves mysteries in exotic locales.
Franka has been translated into a variety of languages, including Danish, German, French and Spanish.
Principal character
Franka (Francesca Victoria), the lead character that the series is named after, is a young, attractive and adventurous female private investigatorPrivate investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
. She lives in a slightly fictionalised Holland, and since 1993's Flight From Atlantis has clearly been revealed as a resident of Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
(before, she lived in the fictional 'Groterdam'). The cases she solves often take place in the worlds of art, antiquities, fashion and film, and also often feature exotic locales full of smugglers, pirates and other shady businessmen.
Dominant women are a recurring theme of the series, similar to other Franco-Belgian comics
Franco-Belgian comics
Franco-Belgian comics are comics that are created in Belgium and France. These countries have a long tradition in comics and comic books, where they are known as BDs, an abbreviation of bande dessinée in French and stripverhalen in Dutch...
series such as Yoko Tsuno
Yoko Tsuno
Yoko Tsuno is a comic book series created by the Belgian writer Roger Leloup published by Dupuis and in Spirou since its debut in 1970. Through twenty-five volumes, the series tell the adventures of Yoko Tsuno, a female electrical engineer of Japanese origin surrounded by her close friends, Vic...
. A single woman for long time, Franka acquired a male partner and love interest in the later volumes, the reformed art thief Rix. More often than not she is also accompanied by her dog Bars.
Franka was not the main character in the very first adventure of the series (an eight page story which makes up the first part of Volume #1, Het Misdaadmuseum).
Instead Jarko (who is an increasingly minor character in all later volumes) played the central role, and Franka is only a secretary in the Criminology Museum.
However, by the second (main) story of the first volume, Franka has become a central character, though not yet as exclusively so as in the later volumes.
Drawing style
Franka is an example of the ligne claireLigne claire
Ligne claire is a style of drawing pioneered by Hergé, the Belgian creator of The Adventures of Tintin. It uses clear strong lines of uniform importance. Artists working in it do not use hatching, while contrast is downplayed as well...
style frequently associated with European comics, and Kuijpers' drawing style is noted for its high artistic standards, particularly clarity of line and accurate detail of elements like cars and buildings. The panels often contain additional little interesting or humorous details not relevant to the main storyline.
The style of drawing has developed significantly from the early comics, in which for example the characters had large eyes and squat proportions, to the more realistic figure drawing of the middle volumes to the slightly more stylized, 'fashion-designer' look of the latest issues. Also changed were the visual depiction of females - the Franka of the later volumes is a much more sexual creature than in the early volumes, where she only had friends, but never partners. While the early volumes rarely show nakedness, all volumes play with erotic poses and later volumes show Franka and other characters naked. Sexual acts, however, generally only hinted at, though again, this becomes more explicit in the later volumes.
Publication history
Franka originally appeared in the weekly comic bookComic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
Pep which, in 1975, merged with Sjors into Eppo. Franka became one of the magazine's fixtures staying there for the next eleven years, with 1984 being her one sabbatical. In 1988 Eppo became Sjors & Sjimmie but it took another year before Franka made her comeback. In 1992 she returned to annual appearances starting at the beginning of the year. After Sjors & Sjimmie (or Sjosji as it was known since 1994) ceased publication in 1999 Franka went on to become the subject of her own online magazine. In February 2009 Eppo has been revived as a two-weekly comic; Franka is one of several household names to be included. In January 2010 she's been voted Dutch comic strip heroine of all time.
From the 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
onwards Franka was also serialised in Veronica Magazine, the magazine of Veronica TV
Veronica (television channel)
Veronica is a commercial TV channel in the Netherlands, owned by ProSiebenSat.1 Media . Other channels of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG in the Netherlands are SBS6 and NET 5....
, which with weekly sales of over 1,000,000 was among the most widely circulated Dutch periodicals.
Franka has also been published in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, Scandinavian languages, as well as in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
(Spirou
Spirou (magazine)
Spirou magazine is a weekly Belgian comics magazine published by the Dupuis company...
).
Incidents from previous volumes are often referred to in the subsequent ones, although they can be read independently.
Albums in the official series
The following are the Dutch languageDutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
editions. From volume 1 to volume 8 the publisher was Oberon, from volume 9 to 15, Big Balloon, and from volume 16 Franka BV.
1. Het Misdaadmuseum (Criminology Museum)
Het Misdaadmuseum
Het Misdaadmuseum is a Dutch comic by Henk Kuijpers. It was serialised in comic weekly Pep in late 1974/early 1975, before being published in its entirety in 1978. One of its characters, Franka, went on to have a successful solo-career.-Plot:The opening sequence chronicles a burglary and the...
(1978)
2. Het Meesterwerk (The Masterpiece) (1978)
3. De Terugkeer van de Noorderzon (The Return of the Noorderzon) (1978)
4. De Wraak van het Vrachtschip (The Revenge of the Freighter) (1979)
- De Terugkeer van de Noorderzon and De Wraak van het Vrachtschip together form one episode.
5. Circus Santekraam (1981) (includes the episode Animal Day).
6. Het Monster van de Moerplaat (The Swamp Monster) (1982)
- also includes the episodes Pyromaniac and Saboteur.
7. De Tanden van de Draak (The Dragon's Teeth) (1984)
8. De Ondergang van de Donderdraak (The Dragon's Downfall) (1986)
- De Tanden van de Draak and De Ondergang van de Donderdraak together form one episode.
9. Moordende Concurrentie (Murderous Competition) (1990)
10. Gangsterfilm (Gangster Movie') (1992)
11. De Vlucht van de Atlantis (Flight from Atlantis) (1993)
12. De Blauwe Venus (The Blue Venus) (1994)
13. De Dertiende Letter (The Thirteenth Letter) (1995)
14. Het Portuguese Goudschip (The Portuguese Gold Ship) (1996)
15. De Ogen van de Roerganger (The Eyes of the Oarsman) (1997)
- Het Portuguese Goudschip and De Ogen van de Roerganger together form one episode.
16. Succes Verzekerd (Success Guaranteed) (1999)
17. Eigen risico (At Your Own Risk) (2001)
- Succes Verzekerd and Eigen Risico together form one episode.
18. Kidnap (2004)
19. Het zwaard van Iskander (The Sword of Iskander) (2006)
20. De Witte Godin (The White Goddess) (2009)
21. Het Zilveren Vuur (The Silver Fire) (2010)
- Het zwaard van Iskander, De Witte Godin en Het Zilveren Vuur together form the trilogy De reis van de Ishtar (The Journey of Ishtar)
Albums not in the main series
- The Cadillac Club (1988)
- Harley Collection (1998)
- Kerstkaarten, Overschakelen and Aquarellen (2000)
- These three volumes ("Christmas Cards", "Dust Jackets" and "Watercolours") appeared in the "kill them pirates" edition produced by Franka BV as a reaction to pirated publications of Franka items after a quantity of Kuijpers' drawings had been stolen.
- Felle Flitsen (2002), specially produced for strip cartoon week by the publishing house Silvester of 's-Hertogenbosch.
- Het geheim van de archiefkast ("The Secret of the Muniment Chest") (1989)
- Het halssnoer (The Noose) (date of publication unknown) - early version of Moordende Concurrentie.
- Technicolor Widescreen (date of publication unknown)
Trivia
- Exponents of Amsterdam's public transport companyGemeentelijk VervoerbedrijfThe Gemeentelijk Vervoerbedrijf is the municipal transport company of Amsterdam. As of 2007, the GVB is an independent corporation wholly owned by the city of Amsterdam.-History:...
(trams in particular) make regular cameo-appearances.
- In 1985 Eppo placed an April Fool's joke suggesting that Steven SpielbergSteven SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
would turn Dragon's Teeth into a Hollywood blockbuster movie.
- The same year, shortly before the publishing of Dragon's Fall, a fake advert emerged telling Franka was busy removing every forged ChineseChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
antiquity in existence.
- Work on Murderous Competition already started before Dragon's Teeth; it took seven years to complete before it was serialised late 1989 in the two-weekly Sjors & Sjimmie. The Saboteur (1979/1981) was rerun as a prequel to introduce Laura Lava to the younger readers.
- In issue 22-2009 of EppoEppo (comics)Eppo is a Dutch comic magazine, that originated after the merging of the magazines Pep and Sjors. It originally ran from 1975 to 1988 on a weekly basis and was revived in 2009 as a fortnightly magazine.-History:...
Franka is lined up in an identity parade of possible offenders who brutally robbed the young girl Elsje (from another comic series) of her copy of Eppo. Other suspects include Agent 327Agent 327Agent 327 is a playful Dutch action/comedy comic series by artist Martin Lodewijk from 1966 onward, with a hiatus between 1983 and 2000. Featuring the eponymous Agent 327 as a James Bond/Maxwell Smart-like Dutch secret agent who fights for "Righteousness and World Peace", his looks are based on the...
and Leonard.
External links
- Franka official site at Uitgeverij Franka BV
- Comic House portfolio of Henk Kuijpers
- Detailed list of Franka publications