Dick Matena

Toonder studios

In 1960, at the age of 17, Matena started working as a volunteer at the Toonder studios. He helped with the drawing projects of Tom Puss (1962–1963) and Panda (1961–1968).

In 1968, his first own comic appeared in the comic magazine Pep.

Freelance period

In 1964, Matena started working as a freelancer, in the beginning mainly for the Toonder studios. He drew his own comic Polletje Pluim.

For Pep, he drew De Argonautjes (1968–1973) and Ridder Roodhart (1969–1971). He wrote scenarios for the Macaroni's (1971–1975) and Blook (1972–1973).

Matena later worked for the cartoon magazine Eppo, and wrote four scenarios for the comic series Storm (1978–1980). Under the pseudonym Dick Richards he wrote eight scenarios for the comic De Partners (1976–1984), drawn by Carry Brugman.

In 1977, Matena changed his drawing style and created his first realistic comic, Virl.

Foreign period

From 1982 until 1984, he lived in Spain and worked for the art agency Selecciones Ilustradas.

For the comic magazine Titanic, he created two starship stories.

After his move to Belgium, he created the comics De laatste dagen van Edgar Allan Poe, Gauguin en Van Gogh and Mozart & Casanova.

Spin-off of Storm and after

With stories by Martin Lodewijk, Matena drew three spin-off comics of Storm. The series of these Storm albums are called Kronieken van de Tussentijd. He used his pseudonym John Kelly at first; the last comic is published under his own name.

In 1997, he started again with the comic Tom Puss. Two stories were published in the Dutch version of the magazine Donald Duck.

Comics of Dutch literature

Matena drew comics of classical Dutch literary books. In 2003, he won the Bronzen Adhemar award. He was the first non-Flemish comics artist to receive this honor.