Dutch comic artist Stefan de Groot published the comic Kwab en het refrigeraat in 1994. The comic is now available in English for the first time. Stefan redrew the whole story with new text. The book Kwab and the Fridgedair is now available as a Hardcover and Paperback on Amazon.
Prof. Dr. Anton Mole, a researcher and explorer of rare animals finds Kwab Hippo in Africa and takes him to his villa in the remote Sibbelin Valley. Here he tries to raise Kwab. Anton Mole leaves for another expedition and asks Kwab to look after the villa. Every day he has to throw herbs into funnels. Kwab accidentally throws an overdose of herbs (the Fridgedair) into the funnels. An explosion follows and the Sibbelin valley is covered with a thick layer of snow in the middle of summer. The detective duo Oaks-Tootle tries to unravel the mystery.
The book is a text comic. Text comics are a form of comics where the stories are told in captions below the images and without the use of speech balloons. It is the oldest form of comics and was incredibly dominant in European comics from the 19th century until the 1960s, after which it gradually lost popularity in favor of comics with speech balloons. In the Netherlands, text comics even remained dominant as late as the early 1960s. Many European moral guardians looked down upon comics as low-brow entertainment that made the youth too lazy to read. In some instances, foreign balloon comics were simply re-adapted by erasing the balloons and adding captions underneath them. The book version of Kwab and the Fridgedair is published as a picture book. In this way, the images are printed in a larger format and it is easier to read.
Stefan de Groot is a comic artist and illustrator who started his career 30 years ago by publishing books of Kwab Hippo. He now makes animations and curates museum exhibitions. On his YouTube channel, Stayf Draws he makes video tutorials on how to draw, paint and animate on the iPad. The videos have been viewed more than 5 million times.
Kwab and the Fridgedair is also available as an eBook on Apple Books.
The history of Kwab aka Horus Hippo can be read in the hardcover and paperback that is also available on Amazon.
