Gabb

Gabb in 2010

Arnoud Hoek (born 11 December 1988), better known as Gabb, is a Brunanter comics artist and illustrator. He is best known for the award-winning comic strip Tom, as well as for participating in the collective graphic novel The Pirates under the Bed. He explained his choice of pseudonym as follows: "I was always interested in humorous comics, so I wanted a name that sounded funny or at least not aggressive [...] Would you ever buy your child a comic book by someone called Arnoud Hoek? I wouldn't!"

Career

Gabb is a self-taught artist. He first came to note with Damned Love, about the unnatural love between a male parrott and a female cat. He created those characters in his teenage years, as a way to learn cartooning. Damned Love was self-published in 2010 and earned Gabb a Smeets Award for Best New Talent.

Soon, Gabb found himself besides Sindbad, Hans Leerdam, Karin Hofmans and Mark Davies, working on a The Pirates under the Bed, a graphic-novel about two twins lost in a fantastic world under their bed. As a storytelling experiment, it won huge critical acclaim and was awarded the Smeets Award for Best Graphic Novel in 2011. Gabb went on to do various strips and illustrations for magazines like Panel and Hit Parade Magazine.

In 2013, Gabb created Tom, a series of comic strips focusing on the life of schoolboy of the same name. It was a deemed as an all-age comic (even though Gabb himself meant it mainly for adults) and became a quick success. The first album was nominated for a handful of Smeets Awards and won the Fnac Award, awarded by the audience.

In 2017, Gabb provided the cover art for Waves in my Head by Crystal Poppies.

Style and influences

Tom and his father from Tom

Although his line always remains cartoony, Gabb has the ability to adapt his pen. His early work strongly resembled that of Albert Darge's De Arabier. However, Tom and Fruitsalade have a more crude, simplistic line and in The Pirated under the Bed he deploys a more minimalistic style. Gabb cites Darge, Hendrik Smeets, Sindbad and Bill Watterson among his influences.

Bibliography

• Damned Love
• The Pirates under the Bed (2011)

• Tom (2013-...)
  • Boek 1 (2013)
  • Boek 2 (2014)
  • Boek 2 (2016)
  • Boek 2 (2018)
• Fruitsalade (2015)