'Mickey Lost 't Op' from Donald Duck #31, 6 August 2005.
Michel Nadorp is a staff artist at the Dutch Disney art studio of the publishing house Sanoma. He has established himself as one of the leading cover illustrators, making his work a trademark of the Dutch Disney publications. Nadorp is by now the longest serving member of the studio, and has worked alongside Frans Hasselaar, Ed van Schuijlenburg, Wilma van den Bosch, Viktor Venema, Jan-Roman Pikula, Maarten Gerritsen and Tim Artz. He also drew self-created gag comics like 'De Nitwits', 'Zus & Zo', 'Max!' (1996-1999) and 'Ab van de AbvaKabo'.
Cover illustrations for Donald Duck issue #31 (6 August 2010) and Donald Duck Extra issue #12 (1993).
Early life and career
Born in Rotterdam in 1960, Nadorp started his career as an apprentice of Fred Julsing in 1979. During this period, Michel helped with the coloring of Julsing's 'Witte's Dagboek' for Taptoe. He also drew his first, unpublished, comic, 'Kick en De Onderwereld'. Julsing recommended him to the Dutch Disney editors at the publishing house VNU, where he started working under the guidance of Daan Jippes in 1980.
Cover illustrations for the Greek Disney weekly Donald Duck and the Donald Duck Pocket #158.
Donald Duck
Among Nadorp's early work were drawing covers for the Donald Duck weekly and the now-defunct Mickey Maandblad. His main output has remained posters and covers since then. Nearly all the covers for the Dutch pocket comic books until 2014 are drawn by Nadorp and his art regularly graces the covers of the weekly Donald Duck and the monthly Donald Duck Extra. His cover art has been reused for foreign Disney publications and he has also contributed exclusive cover illustrations to Aku Ankka Ekstra in Finland (2007-2012).
'Goofy Geeft Les' (Donald Duck #5, 4 February 2011).
Between 1980 and 2000, Nadorp has also illustrated over 50 comic stories with Disney characters like 'Donald Duck', 'Dumbo', 'Goofy' or 'Mickey Mouse'. Together with editor Jos Beekman, he set up popular sections like the riddle comic 'Mickey Lost 't Op' (2000-2010) and Goofy's educational feature 'Goofy Geeft Les' (since 1999). Jan-Roman Pikula eventually took over the art duties for the 'Mickey' feature. Nadorp's artwork is also featured on promotional artwork and online products like Ducktypen and the DuckWorld Adventures game.
'Max'. Translation: "Buzz off, little twerp." - "Hey, dear, you know what they say about little men: that they have an enormous you-know-what." - "I thought that was a fable. There's only one way to find out whether it's true. It is." - "This is probably the first time that somebody is knocked-out by his own erection."
Personal comics
Nadorp has made a couple of comics outside of his regular Disney work. In the 1980s, he made comic strips like 'De Nitwits' (with Frans Hasselaar) and 'Zus & Zo' (with Joost Timp) for Club Veronica. In the 1980s, Nadorp and his friend and colleague Frans Hasselaar have also made the comic strip 'Ab van de AbvaKabo' for the Dutch labor union AbvaKabo, and the gag strip 'Max!' (1996-1999) in Hitkrant magazine. In 2017, he illustrated a story of Hasselaar's superhero parody 'Beterman' for the fourth issue of Stripglossy. The previous installments were drawn by Maarten Gerritsen and Tim Artz.
Covers
For comic magazine Eppo, Nadorp has drawn cover illustrations with licensed foreign characters like Morris' 'Lucky Luke', Michel Greg's 'Achille Talon' ('Olivier Blunder'), Willy Vandersteen's 'Suske en Wiske', Mort Walker's 'Beetle Bailey' ('Flippie Flink'), Chic Young's 'Blondie' and Albert Uderzo's 'Asterix'.
'Zus & Zo'.
Articles about superheroes
Nadorp is a connoisseur of American superhero comics, and has written several articles about the subject for Wordt Vervolgd and the comics news magazines Stripschrift and Striprofiel. With Ger Apeldoorn, he originated the 'Stars & Strips' section about US comics in Wordt Vervolgd and then Stripschrift. The section is nowadays written by Olav Beemer. Nadorp has also drawn a 'Spider-Man' story for the 1990/1991 Superhero pocket calendar.
'Beterman'.