Jan Wesseling is best known as an illustrator, but he has also created comics during his long career. Born in Oudekerk aan de Amstel, Wesseling studied advertising at the Don Bosco School in Amsterdam. He was sent to work in Germany during World War II, where he kept his artistic ambitions alive by drawing portraits of deceased and missig family members of his factory co-workers. After the War, he was sent to the Duch colony Indonesia during the Politional Actions. There, he was drawing for several soldier's magazines, as well as the Tiger Brigade memorial book 'Tussen Sawahs en Bergen'.
Back in Holland, he found employment with several advertising agencies, but in 1956, he joined the team of talented Dutch comic artists at the Marten Toonder Studios. He initially worked on 'Koning Hollewijn' and 'Tom Poes', but his best known work from this period is the newspaper strip 'Marion'. This melodramatic comic was one of the few balloon strips produced by Toonder at the time. It appeared in De Telegraaf between 1957 and 1961. Scripted by writers like Lo Hartog van Banda and Harry van den Eerenbeemt, Wesseling soon got help with the art duties from Thé Tjong-Khing, who also took over when Wesseling left the strip completely.
Text (c) Lambiek
