Who is Franka

Cover of PEP 48, 1974 that introduced Franka.

How did it all start...

Franka (Francesca Victoria) is a young, attractive and adventurous female private investigator. At first she lived in a fictionalised version of the Netherlands, her home was in the town of Groterdam. But since 1993’s “Flight of the Atlantis” she has been known as a resident of Amsterdam. The cases she solves often take place in the worlds of art, fashion and film in a world of exotic places full of cons, crooks and crazies. Once I started reading her adventures in the new Eppo magazine in 1976, it soon became my favourite comic. Only to be paralleled by the adventures of “STORM” created by Don Lawrence in 1977. It was going to be an interesting ride...

In PEP Nr.46 (1974 was the first announcement of the new comic,then in the next issue (47) they not published an interview with Henk Kuijpers and announced that the first adventure “The Coup” of what was to be called “ The Criminology Museum” was coming the next week. We see a movie poster being hung up that features the THREE main characters; Arend, Jarko AND FRANKA!

This one, the actual cover looked slightly different than advertised... BETTER! The “inside cover” page for the German version had some extra tree action (below).

In 1977 the first adventure of Franka in book form was advertised with a special deal of ONE guilder off the cover price for Eppo readers I knew I needed that book! For a long time this adventure was the first and only Franka book I owned, because all other stories were published in the EPPO magazine - and why double up. It has become a precious item in my collection and is zip-locked in a plastic bag, protected from the elements.

“THE CRIMINOLOGY MUSEUM”

It all began in 1973, when Henk Kuijpers first started to work on his comic adventure series. His test pages about a TV company got him work at Pep magazine and after some short stories, these test pages evolved after six weeks into “The Criminology Museum”. Its first episode “The Coup” (which I believed could also be a cool nickname for Kuijpers, “the Kuijp”) was published in the 48th issue of PEP magazine, 29th of November 1974. Franka was just part of a team of five and was in it for only 14 pages. In a different reality it might have just been called Jarko!

One of the main reasons why it was changed to FRANKA was because when the Pep and Sjors magazines fused into EPPO the stories had to be streamlined aiming for a more younger audience. Thus, in the second book Franka became the lead character, living on her own in the big city, just like Henk - who was still a student of sociology at that time.

I was still a little boy, reading comics in my small room in the Hague, the Netherlands who would have thought I would end up in New Zealand with a large Franka collection!

Over the last 45 years, Franka has changed a lot. But then... haven’t we all. I still look forward to each book and admire every line that Henk Kuijpers has ever drawn!

The first frame that introduced Franka in the first book, dressed in purple clothes (purple was THE colour of the seventies, also associated with feminism... well I guess Prince brought it back in the 80’s, not to mention the Color Purple movie!)

Years later I did double up on the first album by adding the special hardcover version, with some great behind the scenes info from Henk Kuijpers himself. The vignette on the cover shows Franka in similar coloured clothing but in the newer style of drawing.

The great thing about the special hardcover version was the fact that Henk Kuijpers gave the fans of his work a peek behind the curtains. An insight to what it takes to create a comic book, with all the research and the sketches. A treasure trove of information for the readers of Franka.

From the moment that the first adventure in the series was finally released in this fomat, it came with a wealth of information. From insights into Henk’s earlier drawings as a kid to some initial artwork that would eventually lead to the creation of my beloved comic book hero.

Jarko actually made the cover of the PEP. They might still have considered that Jarko would become the star of the series. A larger version of this frame from page 25, but with the newspaper ad coloured in!)

For 45 years Henk has given his fans pages filled with amazing stories and details. However, I think for many of his fans, Franka’s ability to show off her body within these adventures would be high up on the list for liking his awesome comic books!

NEXT ISSUE we will explore ‘the naked truth’!

The LIST

Here’s a list of all of Franka’s adventures:

1. Criminology Museum(1978) 2. The Masterpiece (1978) 3. The Return of the Noorderzon (1978) 4. The Revenge of the Freighter (1979) 5. Circus Santekraam (1981) 6. The Swamp Monster (1982) 7. The Dragon’s Teeth (1984) 8. The Dragon’s Downfall (1986) 9. Murderous Competition (1990) 10. Gangsterfilm (1992) 11. Flight of the Atlantis (1993) 12. The Blue Venus(1994) 13. The Thirteenth Letter) (1995) 14. The Portuguese Gold Ship (1996) 15. The Eyes of the Oarsman (1997) 16. Success Guaranteed (1999) 17. At Your Own Risk (2001) 18. Kidnap (2004) 19. The Sword of Iskander (2006) 20. The White Goddess (2009) 21. The Silver Fire (2010) 22. Underworld (2012) 23. Secret 1948 (2016) 24.Operation Robbery and Murder (2019)