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With the arrival of social media, we are lucky to have comics being shared every day. They are incredibly popular and are uploaded by a multitude of amazing artists from all over the world.

Some illustrators have been working and sharing their artworks with a wide audience for quite some time, but new ones are popping up all the time too. And we at Bored Panda are always looking for the best ones to amuse you, dear readers.

Today we'll show you the humorous art of a Belgian freelance cartoonist named Dieter Bevers. He has won a lot of cartoon awards in Belgium, the United States and other countries all around the world. The artist manages to entertain with simple yet powerful comics that might make you squeeze a smile out.

More info: Instagram | quatsch.be

Dieter shared with Bored Panda that he finds most of his inspiration for cartoons in real life: "For example, I see or read something about schoolkids riding in a bus and in my head, there is this voice that says: 'Hey, wouldn’t it be fun if, instead of just kids, there would also be an alien xenomorph in this school bus?' And then I try to develop this idea in a cartoon."

Dieter gave some more examples on how he comes up with ideas for his comics: "I see a picture of a fancy interior in a magazine and I start to think about who would live in a place like that. Then my mind starts to wonder and I imagine that the classy living room does not belong to a human being but to a flea: I see a flea standing in this posh interior and it is boasting to another flea: 'We also have a poodle in the Hamptons.' So I changed the setting from a house or an apartment to a dog."

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Meet The Surreal Humor Of Artist Dieter Bevers

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Jef Bateman
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had a friend once who often quoted the old saw, "Jesus saves, Moses invests." He was Jewish, so he could get away with it.

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"It is this replacement of humans by animals that can sometimes create a comic effect (because it creates an absurd situation). For instance, two sharks sitting at a table in a restaurant. Or you can mix human behavior with animal behavior: some female spiders eat the male spider after mating. This is something that happens in real life: it’s a rather tragic fact and not funny at all. But you can turn this fact into something funny by drawing a cozy living room and then putting a female spider in it (wearing human clothes). This spider is then seen using her dead husband as filling for her meat pastries and all the elements combined (the human setting, the animal wearing human clothes, the fact that it makes pastry) can create a comic effect."

Dieter revealed that he is motivated by a lot of artists. After being asked to name a few, the artist mentioned Gary Larson, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, Robert Crumb, John Callahan, Ed Steed, Chas Addams and a lot more. "There are too many to mention, really."

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Comics are an important part of Belgian culture. Dieter admitted that he read all the Belgian classics when growing up: "I read 'Jommeke' by Jef Nys and 'Suske en Wiske' by Willy Vandersteen. Also 'Lucky Luke' by Morris, of course." Later the artist turned to "Nero" by Marc Sleen and "Guust Flater" by Franquin. After that Dieter discovered the foreign comics of Comès, Muñoz/Sampayo, Altan, Charles Burns, Claire Bretecher, Jim Woodring and many more.

"My favorite comic when growing up used to be 'Guust Flater.' You probably know him by his French name, Gaston Lagaffe, but I grew up in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (Flanders). Why was this one my favorite? Because Gaston’s adventures were always hilarious and they were brilliantly drawn by Franquin. My favorite Gaston story is 'The Bravo Brothers' in which Gaston buys three chimpanzees from a circus and takes them to his work office."

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Meet The Surreal Humor Of Artist Dieter Bevers

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Ryan Deschanel
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This one made me laugh out loud. I might not be as mature as I think, after all.

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We got curious about what part of the creative process Dieter enjoys the most. The artist admitted that he still likes to draw on paper, so drawing his first sketch is his favorite part: "Transferring an idea from my mind to paper. I really love that part. After this, the work is a bit less interesting because from then on it’s more 'manual labor,' so to speak: refining the sketch by adding details, changing the position of the characters, adding the background (if any), stuff like that. When the drawing is finished, I feed it to my scanner and then I digitally add color using Photoshop."

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"About putting it in color: I think I’m really terrible at coloring my cartoons. Maybe I should just leave them in black and white. I'm not sure if my cartoons improve by coloring them. Also, I think my drawing style is still a bit too 'clean' and boring. Sometimes I try another style but I’m never satisfied with that either. Maybe my drawing style will still undergo some changes as I grow older (hopefully for the better), who knows..."

The artist started his Instagram page one year ago (in November, 2020) because he wanted to show his work to as many people as possible. Right now, he has almost 5,000 followers. "It's nice to see that one year later, a lot of people are following me."

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Meet The Surreal Humor Of Artist Dieter Bevers

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Corgo Man
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Girl on the right can see it. (thenk ya gandalf the pink for pointing that out)

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BusLady
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And don't forget to give this poison apple to your teacher.

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Meet The Surreal Humor Of Artist Dieter Bevers

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Ozymandias73
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Hoovers and Dysons and Kirbys oh my oh my! They came from a planet way up in the sky. They came down to earth, to suck up our dirt. But some reason they always made all the cats cry

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Remi Flynne
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My mother's old cat LOVED her vacuum cleaner. Would sit on it and she'd vacuum the floors with the cat being dragged around in style. She was tiny and not very strong and he was a total bruiser!

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Teresa Spanics
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My late Great Aunt Doris told me of the time she was vacuuming at a relative's place and one cat took off while the other just laid there. She gently vacuumed around the cat, then gently vacuumed one side, flipped the cat over, vacuumed the spot it was laying on, vacuumed the other side of the cat, and flipped the cat back. A few days later when she started up the vacuum, the one cat took off while the one she vacuumed came running up and flopped down in front of the vacuum to get vacuumed again. Later, she said her relatives' said that cat would always do that.

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Meet The Surreal Humor Of Artist Dieter Bevers

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SeaMonster
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

you have your mothers naaame when you came into the world you cried and broke myyyy heart....

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Meet The Surreal Humor Of Artist Dieter Bevers

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