''Doris Dobbel'' was a Belgian

gag-a-day A gag-a-day comic strip is the style of writing comic cartoons such that every installment of a strip delivers a complete joke or some other kind of artistic statement. It is opposed to story or continuity strips, which rely on the development of ...

comics series, written and drawn by

Marc Sleen Marcel Honoree Nestor ( ridder) Neels (30 December 1922 – 6 November 2016), known as Marc Sleen, was a Belgian cartoonist. He was mostly known for his comic '' The Adventures of Nero and Co.'', but also created gag comics like ''Piet Fluwijn ...

, between 8 April 1950 and 1965 and published in the magazine ''De Middenstand''.

Concept

The series was centered around Doris Dobbel, an obese

butcher A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishm ...

who enjoyed smoking cigars. Many gags center around him trying to please his customers or attempting to get rich, while his vain wife nags about money. Other gags are built around his never-ending rivalry with his neighbour Jan Janssen, who also owns a butcher's shop. (The character Jan Janssen was a caricature of journalist

Jan De Spot Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to: Acronyms * Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN * Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code * Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group * Japanese Article Num ...

, who was a personal friend of Sleen and who was also caricatured as a rivalling neighbour in Sleen's other gag comic '' Oktaaf Keunink''. Like most of Sleen's other gag series ''Doris Dobbel'' came to an end when he dropped all his series in 1965 in favor of ''

The Adventures of Nero ''The Adventures of Nero'' or ''Nero'' was a Belgian comic strip drawn by Marc Sleen and the name of its main character. The original title ranged from ''De Avonturen van Detectief Van Zwam'' in 1947 to ''De Avonturen van Nero en zijn Hoed ...

''.

Legacy

''Doris Dobbel'' has sometimes been unfavorably compared with Rik Clément's comics series ''Dees Dubbel'', which ran in ''Ons Zondagsblad'', consequently the same newspaper where Sleen published '' Oktaaf Keunink''. However, Sleen's creation is five years older than Clément's and the series have nothing in common. ''Dees Dubbel'' is a straight humoristic adventure strip, while ''Doris Dobbel'' has always been a gag comic. On November 9, 2010 a copy of ''De vrolijke avonturen van Doris Dobbel'' was auctioned for 12.000 euro, making it the highest price ever sold for a Dutch-language comic. The high bidding was influenced by its rarity. Only eight complete publications are known to exist.

References

{{Reflist Belgian comic strips Belgian comics titles 1950 comics debuts 1965 comics endings Comics characters introduced in 1950 Dobbel, Doris Dobbel, Doris Dobbel, Doris Dobbel, Doris Gag-a-day comics Comics by Marc Sleen Works set in Flanders Comics set in Belgium