![[Cover of Zone 5300, issue 14-1]](https://www.24oranges.nl/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/zone_5300-14_1-cover.jpg)
The spring issue of Zone 5300 (tagline: Comics, Culture and Curiosa) is out. Apart from the usual suspects (Mr. Mack, Maaike’s Diary, Troglodytes, Olga, Boerke, Cowboy John) there are:
– Carrièremoves (Career Moves) by Robert van Raffe, showing that the meta-comic isn’t dead, no matter how hard we club it over the head
![[panel from Armand and Ilva]](https://www.24oranges.nl/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/zone_5300-14_1-the_tjong_khing.png)
– An interview with Thé Tjong Khing (right), perhaps best known for his children’s books illustrations, but also for his recently republished Arman & Ilva sci-fi comic (written by Lo Hartog van Banda)
– An admission by Fool’s Gold editor Frits Jonker that he has taken part of his variety show to the Web in his new Showcase blog
– An interview with Utrecht-based collage artist Raymond Teitsma (left)
– And also comics by Wasco, Vladan Nikolic & Aleksandar Pavkovic, and Brooklyn-based Israeli artist Koren Shadmi. This month no Plageman (Beachman), I’m afraid. I should have nagged more.
The Dutch government bank specifically founded to get students their loans and bursaries, the Informatie Beheer Groep (literally: information management group) apparently accompagnies its folder on how to pay back with a cartoon that shows a waiter presenting a long bill to a fat guy who has just excessively gorged himself on food and wine. I am guessing the PR department ordered a cartoonist to create an amusing drawing to spruce up an otherwise boring folder, but the result is a rather patronizing message. As if university students need to be told that there is a cost associated with gluttony. (And indeed, students are presented as the stereotype of the partying care-for-nothing; can you imagine a political party advertising to get new members by showing a cartoon of a guy lighting cigars with bank notes freshly stolen from the public?)
