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I recently got a new book for my
Laurel and Hardy collection. It's in Dutch and
is called Laurel en
Hardy. This hardcover book features
Laurel and Hardy comic strips by Marten Toonder
(1912-2005), considered to be one of the most
successful comic writers in the Netherlands,
and he was widely regarded throughout
Europe. His success was at its highest during
the 1950s and '60s, when he had his comic
serials published routinely in newspapers -
the comics were called Tom Poes and Ollie
B Brommel.
But, very early in his career,
he published about nine or ten four-panel
comic strips based on Laurel and Hardy and
these may have been his first published
work. These comic strips were published
(one at a time) in 1933 in a weekly magazine called
Cinema and Theatre under the MGM
copyright.
The particular book that I got features
seven of those strips and is published by the
Marten Toonder Verzamelaars (Collector) Club, with
the cooperation of the Marten Toonder
family. These strips were also used by MGM in
Germany. It is thought that the character in
Mr Toonder's comic strip Ollie B Brommel,
who is a very rotund bear (see below), was
influenced by Oliver Hardy.
This book was published in 2008 and is a very
limited edition. It measures 11 inches x 8
inches, 16 pages, high quality.
I want to thank sincerely Bram Reijnhoudt of the
Netherlands Perfect Day Tent for his help in
getting background information on this.
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Cover of the
book
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