Short Comics origin
8-12-2014
Since we have a new book on offer in the Comics, a compilation of three short comics by Coco (many more will follow in this series), we thought it nice to let Coco explain a bit about their origins.
Almost all of the work I did in comics was published originally in a Dutch magazine called MASSAD
It must have been around 1986. I had already been working for Harmony Communications (later Concepts) for a couple of years, and through a mutual friend, I was able to arrange a meeting with the editor of Massad. He turned out to be a very amiable guy, we had a drink at a side walk cafe in Amsterdam, and I showed him some Harmony magazines with my work in them. And I remember to this day how, as I started to formulate my inquiry, he interrupted me in mid-sentence, saying: "Yes, Coco, we ARE interested!"
That started a collaboration that would last for over 25 years, and this was my first comic page ever published. Though I still like it, I hope you'll feel I have taken a few steps since then, looking at the other page. 
Now, I started of with a story, which I made up as I went along; not very much has changed about that. Originally, I would do four pages each number, this turned out to be too little, and we settled on six (the length of most of these Short Comics).
But at that time, mind you, we were still talking about an ongoing story, that developed over weeks and months. And here's the thing: when after some 40 some pages I had finally succeeded to bring the story to some sort of conclusion, I was so fed up with it that I rang my editor, and asked him, hey, how about a short story for every separate issue?
And that's how these short comics originated. Only problem was, that after a few of THEM, I started to feel I didn't have time and space enough for a real story, and I would want to do a serial again. And so we have been going back and forth, for over 25 years. Which in part explains the differences in appearance of the SC's: some of them were made years apart.
(to be continued)
CBAP