Jommeke

Jommeke is a Flemish comic strip series in publication since 1955. It was created by Jef Nys and can be defined as a humoristic children's adventure series. Jommeke, a 11 year old boy, is the series' main protagonist.

"Jommeke" is very popular in Flanders and, together with Spike and Suzy the best-selling comic strip in the region. However, its success has always purely remained a Flemish phenomenon, seeing that attempts at foreign translations all failed.

History

The first appearance of Jommeke was on 30 October 1955, as a gag-a-day strip in the Belgian magazine Kerk en Leven. After moving to another newspaper, Het Volk, in 1958, "Jommeke" became a full length adventure comic strip, while Nys also continued Jommeke gag pages in 't Kapoentje. Jommeke has sold 51 million albums in Belgium alone, which means an average of about 4.5 albums per person. This makes Jommeke the best-selling comic book series in Belgium behind Spike and Suzy. There's also a newspaper for children called "Jommekesgazet", which is delivered weekly together with popular Belgian newspaper "Het Nieuwsblad".