Born : December 30 1922
Deceased : November 6 2016
Biography Marc Sleen
Marcel Honoré Nestor Neels was born in 1922 in Gentbrugge. He spent the first 16 years of his life in Sint-Niklaas. His father was a former businessman who owned a café and fixed watches in his spare time. As a kid, the young Neels was fascinated by animals. Living not that far from Antwerp, meant he could visit the Antwerp Zoo on a frequent basis. He enjoyed watching the animals in the Zoo and studied them both there by reading about them in encyclopedias. The boy also loved caricaturing. Throughout his entire life, he had an interest in figurative painting. At the age of 14 Marc Sleen attended the Art Academy of Sint-Niklaas and later studied at St. Lucas. Unfortunately, the outbreak of World War II prevented Neels from ever graduating.
War years
During the Nazi occupation, Neels’ older brother joined the resistance. In order to arrest him, the Nazis kept Marc and his younger brother hostage. Despite being tortured and eventually put in a death cell they never betrayed their sibling. Each day one of Neels’ cellmates was shot. By the time he and his brother could be next, it was 6 June 1944, or D-Day. As the Allied forces started reconquering Western Europe, his prison guards panicked and transported all their prisoners to a POW camp in Leopoldsburg. They all managed to escape soon afterward and Belgium was liberated in September 1944. Nevertheless, Neels suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares for the rest of his life.
Caricaturist
In 1944 Neels started working as a political caricaturist for the Catholic newspaper De Standaard. True to his paper’s ideology many of his cartoons during this period supported the Christian-democratic party CVP and criticized the socialist party SP and Communism. Later in his career, Marc Sleen expressed regrets about his one-sided work in his early years. Originally he signed his serious art under his own name while signing his caricatures and comics with “Marc Sleen”, turning around the letters of his family name. Gradually he signed all his work under this pseudonym. Sleen remained active as a political cartoonist until 1955, after which he focused exclusively on his comics.

The comic series ‘Nero’
He is best known for his comic series ‘Nero’ (1947-2002), which landed him a place in the 1992 edition of the ‘Guinness Book of Records’ for being the longest continuous comic strip in existence drawn by one single artist. His cartoon drawings consecutively cover an area of 34 football pitches, or the height of the Eiffel Tower 12 times. His most important creation is his anti-hero Nero– an average Flemish guy-, who experienced no fewer than 217 adventures together with his colorful group of side characters. Nero was extremely popular, not only with children but also with adults. More than 30,000 readers followed Marc Sleen when he chose to work for another daily newspaper.

The post-war Belgian kings learned Dutch by reading the Nero cartoons. It was hardly surprising therefore when King Albert II himself inaugurated the Marc Sleen Museum and awarded Marc Sleen a knighthood. The series actually started under the name ‘The adventures of detective van Zwam’. Nero was one of the persons in the series that gradually took the center stage. Detective van Zwam kept appearing in the series, most of the time driving his sports cars like a true lunatic. And you won’t be surprised, his favorite car was a Porsche 911.
Love for animals
Safari was one of Sleen’s favorite pastimes. From 1962 on he visited Africa on an annual basis, published eight photo books about the local wildlife, and also filmed footage for the nature documentary series ‘Allemaal Beestjes’, broadcast on the Flemish public TV channel BRT. His love for fauna inspired many stories he created. In this stories, Sleen tried to give his readers some trivia about the wildlife and animals. Out of concern for their well-being, Sleen became a member of the World Wildlife Fund in 1984. Mark Sleen used to travel the country to give hearings about his travels and safaris. He often left his home rather late, to return in the middle of the night. So, Sleen was convinced he needed a reliable, safe and fast car. And ofcourse that made his choice easier : a Porsche 911T would become has daily driver during 14 years. Good to know is that the car still resides in Belgium, in the hands of a female dutch Collector, and is still used in rallies
Picture Gallery Marc Sleen’s Porsche 911





Unfortunately, the large crowd is unaware of the museum dedicated to Marc Sleen. It is located in Brussels and definitely worth a visit.
Pictures courtesy Wilfried Geerts, Audrey van Ham/ Cor van Ham