Well, I goofed. Yes, I formatted and cropped a bunch of half pages, saved them in WebP format, and then remembered that Imgur doesn’t take that format. *Bah* So we’re down to three of my half-pages for this one, which… actually should be enough.
Me, I first began reading the later Franka albums, in which Kuipers had already evolved the character in to a combination adventurer, sex bomb, and private detective.
(right-click as needed)
[link]
But that’s not how she started. No, reading the first album, I discovered that she began as a rather mousy secretary working for a police task force (as seen in the OP). What I was amazed by is that later in that very same album… she somehow morphed in to a super-spy-like operative(!)
(did Tom Cruise learn his moves from her?)
From what I understand, Kuipers was a natural cartoonist from a very early age, yet went to school to become a sociologist. To me, his LC art is absolutely top-of-the-game, while his narrative style can be a bit bloated and bumbling. I truly love looking at the art, but getting through the stories can frankly be a rambling chore at times, having to sit through a lot of dialogue and exposition. Now did Kuipers’ concentration on sociology (skipping art & cartoonist training, evidently) play a role? Perhaps so.
Finally, jumping ahead again to her modern style, it’s the death of her lover, art-thief “Rix”:
And… LBK has an awesome article on Kuipers:
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/k/kuijpers_h.htm
Unfortunately, my two earlier posts on Franka were lost in the instance move, but I do seem to have backups for those, and should be able to re-post at some point.