How I Met Betje Ton
Amaris Ketchum and Nora Hickey and Cara Gormley made a post making a list of comics Substacks.
And Betje was on the list.
I started to follow her.
And she followed back.
When I noticed she was doing climate comics.
I reached out due to my comic about the gun debate.
It felt like a similar use of the comics medium for a serious topic.
That was some months maybe even years back now.
But we finally got it together to do a Q&A.
This part is my Q&A with her.
And she’s going to be publishing her Q&A with me soon too.!
Betje Ton
My name is Betje (pronounced Betcha).
With over twenty years of experience as an illustrator and cartoonist, I've illustrated anything from children’s books to calendars and greeting cards that were sold all over the Netherlands and the United States.
I write and draw short stories for Tina, one of the longest running comic magazines in the Netherlands and I’ve created cartoons that were shared by Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, 9Gag and many others.
Wondering if you can work with me? Just shoot me an email and I'll tell you what I can do for you.
If you'd like to get to know me and learn how I work, it's best to give me a follow on Substack, where I share illustrated essays about life, creativity and climate change.
5500 Miles of Comics
With over 250 pages of humorous and heartfelt comic journals, Betje Ton chronicles family life in Los Angeles and her move to the Netherlands during a global pandemic.
This first collection of comic journals was successfully crowdfunded on Zoop. If you missed out, you can get the e-book right here.
Relatable Intimacy of Family Life
As someone who really enjoys spending time with families, even if I don’t have one of my own, I loved the relatable intimacy of family life in Betje’s book.
I recently got a text from a good friend with a new child.
Very Well-Structured and Funny (Mom) Jokes
Their not all mom jokes.
But Betje’s comics are very well-structured.
Take this one belw.
Which sets up the premise with the title.
And then walks you through only visual gags.
Until the final line.
Comics about Climate Change
Here’s an excerpt from a recent example of the quality of Betje’s comics about climate change.
It has a great balance between her personal response.
And some of the scientific facts.
She’s able to depict the nuances of the situation we find ourselves in with humor and seriousness at the same time.
I asked Betje some more about why that’s necessary in our Q&A below!
Q&A with Betje!
1.SerioComics: So 5500 Miles of Comics is about your decision to start a daily comics practice and the autobiography of the life that unfolds as a result, I similarly did daily music memoir journaling for a year on Shuffle Synchronicities, can you tell us why you think daily art practices are so helpful and why you would recommend them to others, and also perhaps the limits to their utility?
Betje: The benefits of a daily comics practice, where to start? I'm a huge fan for lots of reasons. Even when you only commit 20-30 minutes a day, you'll see yourself improve incredibly fast. You'll get quicker at generating ideas and develop your own style and visual language. Because of that time constraint, there's no time to be too precious about your work. Before you know it, the next day rolls around and it's time for another one. This frees you up to play around and discover things you wouldn't otherwise. And it's not only beneficial for your art practice! Spending some time with your thoughts, reflecting on your day, finding humor in what life throws at you, it's all very good for the soul.
As for limits, I noticed that after about five years of drawing diary comics, my work started to feel stale and I was having a hard time coming up with ideas. There's still a lof of things I can improve about my drawings, but somehow I'm not achieving that by doing the same old thing :D
2.SerioComics: Your family is so cute in 5500 Miles of Comics, do your kids read your comics, and what are their thoughts about them? Do they ever disagree with how they've been depicted? Do they make their own art?
My kids love being in my comics, especially the youngest. While I do share personal things about myself, I stay away from private things when it involves other people. When in doubt, I ask them, but this has rarely occurred.
All three kids are very creative. The oldest loves to draw and paint and wants to become an architect, the second likes to make Warhammer models and the youngest is drawing comics as I'm typing this!
3.SerioComics: You also have a popular comics Substack. On your Substack you make climate comics. Where you often make fun of your imperfect climate activism yet also show how necessary it can be. Why is humor and autobiography so helpful in taking on climate change? You've also done some climate interviews, talk to us about your process there, how do you find your subjects, do you interview them via email/in person, how do you adapt their content into comics, and what have you found to be the reader response to your translation of this serious subject into comics?
In 2020, I started working as a live cartoonist for The Climate Centre. I learned a lot about climate change and how it affects people, especially those who contributed to this problem the least. It seems that as soon as you mention climate change, a lot of people feel attacked. But we do have to talk about it, if we want to have a shot at finding solutions. Autobiographical comics are the perfect way to open up a conversation, because when you're sharing your own experiences, it's hard for people to get mad about it. Instead of shouting facts and opinions at each other, we should talk about how it affects us at an emotional level. Much like you're doing in your book "Should we buy a gun", tell a story that people can relate to, and they're much more likely open up to a different perspective.
When I started making comics about this issue, I was just coming to the conclusion that I should stop making autobio comics for a while. I was bored of 'me talking about me' and maybe also a bit doubtful if I had something meaningful to say about this. That's why I decided to make comics about other people, who had been involved in climate action for much longer than I was.
When possible, I meet the interviewees where they work, as that gives me valuable input for my comics. I can't imaging doing this comic about Daan without actually being in his warehouse:
The response to these comics was OK, but I think most of my audience follows me because I make autobio comics, and they actually enjoy going on the journey with me, as I figure out how I want to relate to the issue of climate change.
4. SerioComics: I really like your art style of juxtaposition, those are some of my favorite of your comics, this is how I cook and this is how Peter cooks, for instance. Can you tell us a bit about how you determine what makes for an interesting diary comic? Can you also tell us also about your art process, what are the instruments you use, what are the technologies, how long does it take each day to make a comic?
When I sit down to draw, I like to think about what I would say when I run into a friend who asks what I've been up to. Of course I wouldn't share what I had for breakfast or any other boring detail, but try and find a story that is interesting. Over the years of making daily comics, I discovered a lot of different ways to frame a story or make it more interesting. During that time, there was a trend on Instagram of juxtaposition cartoons with 'expections' and 'reality'. I didn't particularly like them, because it seemed like a cheap trick to me. However, sometimes it turns out to be the perfect way to get the story across.
I did my first year or so in sketchbooks with pens and copic markers before I switched to an iPad and never looked back. I use Procreate and a comic usually takes me 30 minutes to an hour.
5. SerioComics: You have a new book that is coming out in Dutch, this year, which is very exciting! Your second? Can you tell us more about what that will be? And do you expect to ever have that translated into English?
That is correct, my second book will come out in June! It's a autobiographical graphic novel about how I'm trying to find my voice in climate action. It also includes the interviews I talked about earlier. It will me published in Dutch and my publisher will try to sell the foreign language rights. If they don't succeed in finding a publisher for the English publication, I'll crowdfund it like my first book, 5500 Miles of Comics.
Thank you Betje!
Look out for her interview of me on her Substack soon!
And check out my new parody Haggadah for the Jewish holiday of Passover.
The Office Haggadah!
Monthly Gun Debate Update - March 2025
Ghost Guns and a Ghost ATF…
This month’s gun debate spotlight mixes a ghost gun and an ATF update.
The latest in the legality of DIY, untraceable firearms.
With how the Trump administration may be ghosting the agency regulating them.
The Supreme Court just upheld the Biden-era ATF regulation requiring serial numbers and background checks for ghost gun kits.
It was a rare recent legal win for gun safety advocates.
But that win is happening under the shadow of a federal restructure that could gut the agency enforcing those rules.
A leaked memo also this month from Trump’s DOJ reveals plans to merge the ATF and DEA, consolidate national security and criminal prosecution units, and shrink the Justice Department overall.
This is all under the banner of "efficiency," in partnership with the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.
The move would shift many regulatory responsibilities from central agencies like ATF to U.S. attorney offices.
Who may lack the capacity or will to enforce federal firearm rules with the same focus.
Why it might matter so much…
Ghost guns are cheap, easy to assemble, and lack serial numbers.
Making them ideal for people who legally can’t purchase firearms.
Law enforcement across the country reports they’re now showing up in 25–50% of gun crime scenes in some areas.
The ATF regulation upheld this month aims to stem that tide.
But without a strong, independent ATF, enforcement could become more uneven, local, and toothless.
The fight over ghost guns is no longer just about unserialized firearms.
It's about whether the federal agencies that regulate guns will even exist in their current form.
As The Supreme Court upholds Biden’s ghost gun rules, Trump’s team may be quietly disarming the enforcers.
Thanks for reading SerioComics!
