Paul Geerts

Paul Geerts (complete name Paulus Josephus Coleta Geerts) (born 16 May 1937) is a Flemish comics artist who succeeded Willy Vandersteen as the main artist of the Spike and Suzy series.

Biography Born in Turnhout, his parents moved to Antwerp a few years after his birth, looking for employment. He was taught drawing by his father and as a child entered the youth organisation Chiro Flanders. He later joined the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After three and a half years of drawing lessons, he made the transition to the painting class. However, his father could not afford the painting materials. Geerts decided to quit the academy and to apply for a job with the experience he had.

At the age of sixteen Geerts went into military service, after which he found various jobs. He drew the comic strips De Chirowietjes and De melkweglopers, which appeared in a number of Chiro magazines in the mid-1960s.

Halfway through 1967 he decided without an appointment, with a self-drawn comic strip, to visit Willy Vandersteen in order to possibly get his dream job here. Vandersteen agreed and hired him, and Geerts started working in Studio Vandersteen in early 1968, a drawing team of 26 people at the time. He was the main artist of Spike and Suzy from 1971 until 2002.