Dutch comics creator Marten Toonder dead at 93

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2005

THE HAGUE (AFP) — Dutch comics creator Marten Toonder, whose 'Tom Puss and Mr. Bumble' comics were a mainstay of Dutch newspapers for decades and were exported all over the world, reportedly died Wednesday aged 93.

For forty years Dutch newspaper readers followed the tales of wandering Tom Poes (Tom Puss) and his affluent but bumbling bear friend Olivier B. Bommel (Mr. Bumble).

Toonder's comics also appeared in Belgian, British, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Indonesian, Irish and Swedish dailies and weeklies. His work was translated into over 20 languages.

In 1985 Toonder, then 72, decided to stop the series and in January of the next year the Dutch papers published the last instalment, an event that received nationwide media coverage. When Dutch paper of...