[By Rob Klein:]
Jan Gulbransson was born in 1949 in Munich, Germany, grandson of
renowned artist/caricaturist Olaf Gulbransson. He grew up reading many
comic books and strips, including Donald Duck
(of Carl Barks), Lucky Luke
and
Spirou
. After graduating from school, he attended
artschool (Kunstakademie München), in 1969. But, after five semesters,
he left to work for T.C. Animation Studio. During that time, he also
worked with a partner (Florian Munzer) on a puppet series,
Wuff and Wiff
. He worked both part and full time for
the animation studio until 1980. Also, from 1977 through 1979, he
drew a young children's comic book Berti's Abenteuer
for Velber Verlag. In 1979 and 1980 he was lead animator on the first
two Janosch TV cartoons.
In 1980, he started drawing stories for Oberon (Dutch Disney
Comics). He illustrated the first three stories, and then both wrote
and illustrated his stories through the early 1980s. In the mid to
late 1980s, he wrote and drew many of his own stories, as well as
illustrating those of other scriptors, including Jan
Kruse, Evert Geradts, and Frank
Jonker. At that time, he also started co-productions
(storywriting) with Robert Klein. That partnership
has continued through the 1990s, although he also continued writing
stories alone, and illustrating a stories from other Dutch Disney
scriptors. Although most of his stories for VNU were 10 pages, he
wrote and drew two epic Uncle Scrooge stories for albums:
The Bengal Tigers
(40 pages), and
The Oldest Car in the World
(47 pages).
(The last of those was made for Ehapa in Germany.)
During the 1980s, he also continued work in animation; on feature length films, other short films, and TV commercials.
In 1990, he animated TV commercials and advertising for the German
TV broadcasting of the Winter Olympics. During the 1990s Jan has
widened his illustration field to include books both for children and
adults, while continuing in animation, and also keeping his hand in
comic books with the occasional story for VNU (Dutch Disney), and a
one page weekly comic strip of his own, Willi Wurm
.
He teamed with a partner (Gabriel Nemeth), on the latter.
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