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THE BLOG AT THE CROSSROADS
Peter Pontiac (1951-2015)
Posted: January 21, 2015
Sad news in from The Netherlands. The legendary Dutch underground comics visionary Peter Pontiac, pen-name of Peter J.G. Pollmann, died last night aged 63. Pontac should have been far better known internationally than he was, but his comics and graphics were published in Dutch, English, Spanish and Italian anthologies like Modern Papier, Tante Leny Presenteert, Wipe-out Comix, Cocktail Comix, El Vibora, Anarchy Comic, Mondo Snarfo and Puck Comic Party.
Pontiac was the special guest and exhibited at the HIU8, the 8th edition of the Happening Internazionale Underground, in Milan on May 17th to 19th 2002 (poster above). An interview with him ran in an underground special of the Italian magazine The Artist #5 in 2003. His comics were also translated into French along with work by all the other Tante Leny artists in the two-volume anthology Tante Leny Présente from Artefact in 1977 and 1979.
Over on Broken Frontier, there’s a good overview about Pontiac by Bart Croonenborghs from 2011. That year, Oog & Blik published a wonderful 368-page hardback in Dutch of his short comics entitled Rhythm.
His landmark graphic novel about his father’s role in the War, Kraut won the Marten Toonderprijs Prize in 2011. It was included in the guide I edited, 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die, but so far has not be put into English.Forbidden Planet International ran Wim Lockefeer’s commentary on this remarkable memoir.
To the end, Pontiac was still working. His final work, a new graphic novel entitled Styx of de Zesplankenkoorts aptly about death and dying, will probably be published in its unfinished or almost-finished version. Here is an obituary feature on the NRC.NL news site, and here’s a Vimeo video of him talking about his Styx project and showing pages in progress. In it Pontiac says, “If he comes and gets me, I’ve had him, it’s 1-1. But then the book must be finished. Otherwise it’s 2-0 and I won’t allow death.”
STYX of de Zesplankenkoorts from voordekunst on Vimeo.
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