filler stories

[Wouter van de Zandschulp]

Kai Saarto wrote about 'filler stories' in weeklies, featuring Zeke Wolf, 
Hiawatha, Bucky Bug and others.

I am from Holland, where there is a great tradition in our weekly magazine 
to use these stories. I believe this is because the weekly started out with 
American stories like these and they decided not to just get rid of those 
characters after those stories where mostly published. That's why dutch 
artist started producing these stories themself. A lot of them are drawn by 
ComicUp Studio artist these days.

They reason they keep producing them might also be the variety of characters 
the weekly thus contains. The dutch weekly produces a magazine with several 
'worlds' and characters and is very divers. Readers get Donald every week, 
Mickey most weeks, but also some other colorful animals, like dogs, wolves, 
mice, etc. Also, the dutch magazine gives a lot of attention to the younger 
readers, which these shorter stories are more suitable for.

Finally, considering Zeke Wolf, I guess a lot of dutch people just have a 
thing for him. The way he keeps chasing the pigs year after year...
Now most of his stories are the work of ComicUp Studios, but there used to 
be another artist who gave the wolf sort of a world of his own, which 
probably contributed greatly to his popularity.