Sjors & Sjimmie

Sjors & Sjimmie
Publication information
Publisher Oberon (Netherlands)
First appearance 1938; Sjors
Created by Frans Piët
In-story information
Supporting character of Sjors
Sjimmie
The Colonel
Sally
Dikkie

Sjors & Sjimmie (George & Jimmy) is a Dutch adaptation of the comic strip Winnie Winkle, specifically the character Perry Winkle from that strip. The difference between the American original and the Dutch adaptation is that Sjors (Perry) forms a duo with Africa-born Sjimmie. They're raised by Sally and the Colonel. The Colonel regularly finds himself on the receiving end of their pranks. In return Sjors & Sjimmie are outsmarted by their scheming classmate Dikkie, although they manage to stay the best of friends.

Publication history

Early years

The popularity of the newspaper strip Buster Brown (debuting in 1902) spawned many imitators, including the Perry Winkle character (Winnie's adopted younger brother) in Martin Branner's long-running strip Winnie Winkle (debuting in 1920). Perry's adventures were translated and published in Dutch newspapers; and in 1938 given a Dutch-made version (Sjors en de Rebellenclub by Frans Piët) after the original US strip shifted focus back on to Perry's sister Winnie.

After the strip took a hiatus during World War II, the protagonist Sjors found a companion in Sjimmie, an African boy who was part of the visiting circus. Sjimmie was originally portrayed in blackface stereotypical ways such as speaking in broken language. In 1969 Jan Kruis took over the comic from the retired Frans Piët; he made Sjimmie look like a normal teenager and speak proper Dutch.

Kruis produced two 44-page stories, but eventually chose to work on his one-page comic Jack, Jacky and the Juniors in which Sjors & Sjimmie made one cameo appearance. Jan Steeman continued Sjors & Sjimmie during the first half of the 1970s.

1975-99; the Wiroja-years

In 1975 the Sjors and Pep magazines merged into Eppo; Sjors & Sjimmie were re-invented as one-page gags drawn by Robert van der Kroft. Initial respons was tepid, but things improved when scriptwriter Patty Klein was replaced by the duo of Wilbert Plijnaar and Jan van Die. Collectively known as Wiroja, the threesome of van der Kroft, Plijnaar, and van Die turned Sjors & Sjimmie into one of Eppo's most popular features.

During the 1980s Sjors & Sjimmie grew into teenagers pursuing like-minded interests (soccer, computer games) and chasing girls with varying results, while modern-day trends, celebrities, and political developments were ridiculed. For example; Sjors & Sjimmie were huge fans of "Michael Claxon" and "Madomma" ("dom" meaning "stupid" in Dutch), and preferred off-time lunches at McMickey's over mundane cheese-sandwiches.

Sjors & Sjimmie magazine

Sjors & Sjimmie
Categories Comics magazine
Frequency biweekly
Publisher Oberon
First issue 1988
Final issue 1999
Country Netherlands
Language Dutch

In 1988 Eppo magazine was renamed Sjors & Sjimmie after its most successful comic. It lasted until 1999 and contained multi-page stories besides the regular one-pagers. Wiroja couldn't cope with the amount of work, which was outsourced to a Spanish art studio; Wiroja stayed on hand for cover designs and quality control whilst producing the gag strip Claire for the women's magazine Flair.

The first years of "Sjors & Sjimmie" were still successful, but in 1994 the name was shortened to Sjosji in a vain attempt to reach a younger generation. In 1999 Sjosji ceased publication.

Cancellation

The magazine was revived in 2009 as Eppo, but Sjors & Sjimmie were not included in the new roster of household names from the past. Till 2017 Robert van der Kroft worked on Claire-gags with Jan van Die and Evert Gerets. The latter replaced Wilbert Plijnaar, who has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 1995.

In other media

Seven live-action Sjors & Sjimmie movies were made between 1955 and 1977 by Henk van der Linden.

An anticipated eighth movie never made it to fruition. It would have starred comedians Paul de Leeuw and Eric van Sauers as Sjors & Sjimmie in their 40s.

In 1992 Sjors & Sjimmie appeared in an animated rap video for the No Shobo campaign (shobo being contemporary slang for showoff).

Artists

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