Discover a little-known part of the Netherlands through this comic strip by Dupuis with the arrival of a Dutch and Indonesian family in Europe after decolonization.
A comic strip based on a little-known novel
Peter van Dongen has been identified as one of Blake & Mortimer's designers since 2018. Fichue Famille is the adaptation of Adriaan van Dis' autobiographical novel in which he portrays his father. Peter van Dongen, who is in charge of the script and the drawings, tackles a very intimate subject here. Born into a mixed couple, his father is Dutch and his mother Indonesian. Each chapter is a short story about different moments of everyday life and gradually draws a complex picture of the Jana family. The beginning is deliberately confused. The first pages transcribe the childish imagination: in the very creative mind of the youngest child, an advertising banner behind a plane becomes an insult against his family. 
A History of Decolonization
This situation is complicated because the Jana live in nostalgic memories of the former colony. The past told by his parents then mixes with the reality of the Netherlands. In a Japanese concentration camp, the reader discovers the harsh conditions of detention – a sick mother cared for by her daughters – and the announcement of the emperor's surrender. Arriving in Europe, the blended family is installed in a former convalescent home. You can hear the echoes of the Cold War on the radio. The father also lives in illusion… to obtain reparation for the land he lost in Indonesia. But he only reaps polite letters from companies and contempt from villagers. The children want to integrate while the mother remains attached to her Indonesian traditions.
Everything is going wrong with the Jana
We discover from the titles, by clothes that fly, that the angry mother wants to leave. But it seems like a seasonal ritual as her three teenage daughters laugh about it. Their little brother looks at them. He admires them while feeling excluded and despised by all. He does not hear his first name but only the tasks to be done: rag, broom… His sisters are from a first marriage to a soldier who disappeared during the Second World War. They are the ones who met the second husband, Mr. Jana, the narrator's father who has been depressed since fleeing his homeland. He did not accept his downgrading and failed to pronounce the new Dutch East Indies. 
Unwelcome refugees
Some boxes also make feel the racism suffered by these mixed-race or Indonesian families because the "supervisors" complain about the noise during the day. It is indeed necessary to "educate" these newcomers. A charity group gives a guide to good conduct to Indonesian refugees, not to mention the compulsory Dutch cooking classes. Families resist by filling dishes with Indonesian spices.
A draftsman in transition
In the first boxes, the reader finds a style close to Blake and Mortimer by the choice of decorations, clothes … In the same way, the choice of colors is classic but always touches right: the tones around brown, dark green evoke yellowed photos. However, the faces are more realistic and the layout is less fixed and more varied over the chapters. Peter van Dongen experiments with his own drawing. To show that the father remains stuck in the past, we see him from the back looking at the dunes but, the next square, he has the same position in a Javanese landscape. In this intimate family story, Peter van Dongen shows a stunning visual talent. He brilliantly succeeds in a complex adaptation by mixing the sad family history and the great conflictual history. We can regret sometimes useless texts that weigh down the reading because the beautiful images were most often enough. Nevertheless, the artist demonstrates that imagination can be a refuge to escape the suffering of reality.
