CREMER, Jan and Rik Van BENTUM. New Comic Strip Scandal 000.

[Amsterdam] : [Verzetspers], 1963.  First edition.  Oblong quarto.  21.5cm by 29.3cm.  20 unnumbered leaves. Super rare copy of this, the first Dutch underground comic.  For this publication, the future ‘bad boy’ of Dutch literature, Jan Cremer, collaborated with artist Rik van Bentum on a pornographic comic strip.  Inspired by the then-current sex scandal revolving around British Minister of Defense John Profumo and call girl Christine Keeler.  Its political, sexual and gruesomely violent content broke new ground in Dutch comics seeking to deliberately to provoke its readers.  The strip is set in London, Scotland Yard, 10 Downing Street and the Russian embassy making an appearance. The trial against Profumo and Keeler is depicted, including the “original tapes of their conversations” and snapshots of the British Royal Family having sex. Overall, the story is filled with sex and violence, though so crudely written and drawn that it is somewhat chaotic to follow.  The crudeness being  a theme of Dutch comics of the period.  Cremer and Van Bentum alternated on drawing the comic’s pages, here each fully hand-coloured.  The intention was to publish a small edition of just fifteen copies available on subscription however according to Cremer “only 4 or 5 copies” were issued.  Each copy was printed by hand on “real Dutch paper”.  In 1964 Cremer gained cult fame with his adventurous but mythomaniacal “autobiography” ‘Ik, Jan Cremer’ in which he depicted himself as a free-spirited rebel living on the edge.  Often compared to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the novel with its depiction of sex and violence in the raw language of the contemporary youth caused a scandal on publication with calls for it to be banned and many parents forbidding their children to read it.  Nevertheless, the first edition of 5,000 copies sold out in a week with a further 14 printings appearing in its first year of publication.  (Cremer was to write a follow up volume ‘Ik, Jan Cremer, Tweede Deel’ whilst locked into a room, at the Chelsea Hotel, by his editor. Following his fame, Cremer’s contributions to New Comic Strip Scandal 000 were published in the literary magazine Ratio, Van Bentum’s involvement wasn’t even mentioned.  This is a very good copy with title printed in letterpress to red paper cover sheet, behind is a black card sheet with pasted-on photographic image of a female breast.   Sheets stapled, and taped bound at the spine.  Example numbered No 5 and signed by both artists. A very nice copy of this important and virtually unfindable work, othered here with a copy of the original Ratio magazine.  Worldcat locates a single copy a the Koninklijke Bibliotheek although we understand that copy to be mostly un-coloured.