112 Starting a Graphic Travelogue

As I will be recovering from surgery for some months and as I need daily care, I'm stuck in Amsterdam and won't get around much, let alone go anywhere soon. This state of affairs I've been anticipating for some years now. That is why I was doing so much traveling and so much sketching. In 1993 we (a group women of which I was one) organized a week long conference on 'a gay old day' (een vrolijke oude dag). One of the organizers worked a lot with the 'Intranet'. At the time it was a cyber network of universities. The World Wide Web wasn't really up and working yet. But we sensed it wasn't far away either. We asked Marleen Stikker who was setting up an email network provider (dds) for the city of Amsterdam to give a talk about the future importance of computer networks when being old and possibly infirm. Well, it all became reality. Being infirm and older for me means I can play. I have hundreds of sketches, I have Photoshop, my own font and I have the time. I'm playing now with the sketches I have made in the last 6 years in Southern Morocco and in Iligh in particular. Of course the graphic story about Iligh is still 'in progress' if not exactly 'having come to a grinding halt'. Doesn't matter: I have now the time to compose a 'Graphic Travelogue'. This sketch of 'Goats in an Argan Tree' is composed of two different drawings.

76 In search of Michiel de Ruyter

The first chapter of the Graphic Story about Iligh will be about the Michiel de Ruyter connection. Michiel de Ruyter was born in 1607 and died in 1676 during a sea battle against the French. He hailed from the town of Vlissingen on the island of Walcheren in the Province of Zeeland. Zeeland was in the 17th century an independent region of small but rich and powerful islands within the Dutch Republic of Seven Provinces. Michiel de Ruyter is an iconic hero of the seas. His sailors gave him the honorary title of ‘Bestevaer’ (grandfather). The latest biography about him by Ronald Prudhomme van Reine was called ‘De rechter hand van Nederland’ (The right hand of the Netherlands) and a movie about his exploits during the wars with England was titled ‘Admiral’. At primary school I learned the song ‘In een blauwgeruite kiel’ (In a blue tartan shirt) about him as a youth dreaming about going to sea while working on a ropewalk. Lately his heroic status has been questioned and to have an interest in him is considered dubious and ‘not done’. He is accused of facilitating the slave trade. The Dutch had taken over the cross-ocean trade from the Portuguese and made it more ‘efficient’ and thus more vicious and dehumanizing. As with all iconic figures a lot of myths were attached to him and he had become more like an institution than a human being. Time to get a ‘feel’ for this man and to make drawings ‘in situ’ for the graphic story. I took the train to Vlissingen. It was a beautiful sunny day when I set out to the railway station only to find out that the scheduled direct train to Vlissingen had been cancelled. Time enough to sit down and do some serious sketching of the monumental Amsterdam Central Station.

71 Paolo de Mas

Paolo de Mas was one of the Dutch experts who didn’t come to the Reunion Des Amis d’Iligh. He had prior engagements. However he was one of the Dutch connections with Iligh. All through the preparations for the Iligh project he also had been extremely helpful. Chapter 5 of the Graphic Story that had to deal with Paul Pascon had him as the protagonist. We had boldly made that choice although we didn’t have a clue what he had really done during Pascon’s stay in Iligh. He wasn’t on the cover of the book. Herman van der Wüsten was as was Daniel Schroeter and Mohammed Tozy. Bert set up a meeting with him in the ‘1ste Klasse Wachtkamer’ at the Amsterdam Central Station for May 8. Before we went we read up on him. There was an in depth interview with him and his brother on the Internet. He was the son of Italian immigrants who came to Alkmaar in the Thirties and started an ice-cream parlour there. Paolo and his brother were second-generation immigrants. When he went to school in the fifties and sixties other waves of immigrants came to the Netherlands: Italians, Spanish, Yugoslavians and from the early sixties onwards Turks and Moroccans. According to the interview on the Internet Paolo keeps close ties with the village of his parent’s birth in the Dolomites. He visits it at least once a year and takes part in the community. He also cherishes his diploma Professional Ice Cream Maker. From childhood on he was fascinated by maps and geography. When he went to study at the University of Amsterdam he chose Social Geography. His professor there was Willem Heinemeijer and that man had a great influence on Paolo’s life.

The preparation for the 'Reunion'

In February Bert went to Morocco for a symposium on Moroccan-Jewish history at the Jewish Museum in Casablanca. She hoped to meet Jossy Chitry from Haifa and Taroudant there a specialist in Moroccan Jewish manuscripts. She also wanted to meet Zhor Rehilhil the director of the museum again. Zhor was one of the experts interested in attending the 'Reunion' that would be held in Iligh from March 22 to 24. After the symposium she went to Agadir to meet up with Aisha. As neither Bert nor the Aboudmiaa family had any funds,the plan was to have everybody stay in Iligh. However when Bert went on to check the situation in Iligh she was in for a shock. Unexpected changes had taken place there that put in doubt if the 'Reunion' could take place at all. However she couldn't sort out the situation as she had to meet a group in Tangiers. In the drawing Bert is writing her diary in Iligh. The diary that would make up a large part of the Graphic Story.

Chapter 1 Iligh and the Dutch in the 17th century

Part of the Grant Application was a list of chapters and a short description of each chapter. Writing it brought in focus the potentially strong and weak points of the plot-line.From the start we put ourselves in the middle of the story together with Iligh as a location and as a historical power. But does that make a riveting story? Chapter 1 The seventeenth century: the first Dutch connections with Iligh. There are two important seventeenth century sources that tell us about Iligh in Dutch. Michiel de Ruyter, Dutch admiral of the fleet and hero of several wars against England, kept a diary all through his years at sea. Between 1644 and 1652 before being asked by the Dutch Republic to the admiralty, he traded with the ruler of Iligh. In his diaries he describes the travels inland from Santa Cruz (Agadir), the negotiations with the ruler of Iligh whom he calls the 'Sant'because of his religious status as descendant of a Sufi saint and his meetings with Dutch hostages. One of the hostages was Jan van Maren a ship's captain who wrote the story of his ordeal in Iligh after being freed by his former boss: De Ruyter. Will there also be written sources in the archives of Iligh that tell us about trading with the Dutch? The drawing is of the roadstead of Salé. Here Michiel de Ruyter went on land for the first time in Morocco.

From paper to tablet

Graphic Stories were designed and executed on paper. First came the story (typed or handwritten). Then paper was cut to the size of twice the page. With a pencil a template of frames was composed. Next the action and text was drawn also in pencil. Changes could be made by applying an eraser. When satisfied with the pencil sketch the pen and ink came out. In my case a pen that I dipped in a pot of Indian Ink. If a mistake was made white paint was painted over the black ink to blot out the offending bit. If the mistake was of major proportions the scissor came out to cut away the botched up frame(s). The new frames were then drawn on a separate piece of paper and fitted in the hole with the use of glue. Colour was added on a different piece of paper that was put over the original drawing that was put on a light box. Grey shading came from prefab sticky screens of dots. The same applied for stick-on fonts. A screen with dots of the desired density was put over the drawing (on the light box) and cut to size with a surgical knife and then stuck on. It had all to do with how the end product was processed at the print works. It was labour intensive to say the least. If you think I learned these procedures at the college of art, you're wrong. Graphic stories were not seen as art and therefore not taught. I taught myself after I left school, talking to friends and by browsing through shops specialized in artists materials. This way of making graphic stories came to an end with the introduction of the personal computer.

How I made a Graphic Story

Tintin by Hergé has always been the seminal graphic story for me. There was Tintin and then came the rest. Tintin has everything: a good well-written story, interesting story lines, lovable characters, hilarious jokes, beautiful graphics and lots of tongue in cheek action. However the most amazing thing about Tintin was that although it was written in French by a Wallon and set in Belgium, it translated without any problems into totally different languages and still be culturally recognizable. How strongly unique Hergé's touch had been became evident when Steven Spielberg made a animated film of the graphic story: it became just an other thirteen in a dozen action movie. Tintin deeply influenced me. That was how a graphic story was made and should be made. Of course the medium had evolved, but the basics stayed the same. Between 4 to 9 frames on a standing page of around A4. The page was read from the top to the bottom from left to right. All the action happened inside the frames. The dialogues if there were any, were put into so called Balloons. Additional description got their own frames inside the action frame. Sometimes one picture could be cut into more than one frame while the action progressed. Ideally the story should have a bit of a cliff-hanger at the bottom of the page to encourage further reading. The storyline could also be for a book or movie. It had a hero (or in rare cases heroine), a villain and supporting actors and actresses. It had a problem, mystery or challenge that the protagonist had to solve and bring to a good end. It had two plot points when the hero had an epiphany that would put the story into a different gear. And that was how I made my graphic stories.

Letterlijk & Figuurlijk by Joost Pollmann

When Bert came to Ireland in the summer of 2017 she brought a Dutch language book with her: Letterlijk & Figuurlijk (Literally & Figuratively) by Joost Pollmann. It was the precursor of 'De Strip Professor'(The Professor of Comics)a bundle of 50 essays on different aspects of 'telling a story in images'. In that anthology Joost also included a few lines on me and my 'Urban Sketching' in particular the sketches I made while in ICU after a cardiac event. When I got home from hospital I reworked them on the computer into a graphic story using Photoshop software. Curiously enough Joost had headed the essay in which I featured: 'After Photoshop'. The book had been an eye-opener for me. I had used the medium of comics on and off to tell a story since I was 13 years old and over the years had published three graphic novels. It turned out: I didn't know a thing about the medium. In 'Literally & Figuratively' Joost puts the medium under the microscope. What is a comics/graphic story? Is it literature, is it art, is it film or is it nothing more than 'The Funnies'? Joost concludes: it is a separate medium, should be treated as such and should have its own academic platform. Which it hasn't even though it exists since the invention of the printing press. The title refers to the dual aspect that is so unique to a comics/graphic story: the written word and the imaging. It also refers to how the story is told. Is it told in a literal manner keeping close to a story line as for instance in literature? Or is it a bit like art: an expression in images and maybe words of an idea or emotion or just some vehicle for the use of materials and skills? In Dutch the title also refers to lettering. An important aspect of the medium as it is usually an integral part of the image and isn't conceived or printed separately. Anyway the book shook up my idea of how the graphic story about Iligh could take shape.