'Augusta'.
Dominic Poelsma is a Frisia-born cartoonist and illustrator, who has worked in advertising in the Netherlands, Australia and England. A cartoonist for the London Evening Standard, he has worked with writer Angus McGill on the long-running newspaper strip 'Clive' (1968-1999), which was later retitled to 'Augusta'.
Early life and career
Dominicus Lourens Johannes Poelsma was born in 1936 in Leeuwarden, the capital of the Dutch province of Frisia. His father was the farmer's son and sports/self-defense instructor Johannes "Joe" Poelsma, who emigrated to Australia in 1952, followed by his family nine months later. Dominic began his career in commercial art in the Netherlands, and then spent some time living in Australia. During the 1950s, he attended Melbourne Technical College part-time. By the 1960s, he was based in London, where he continued to work in advertising.
'Clive'.
Clive/Augusta
At the London Evening Standard, Poelsma teamed up with the columnist Angus McGill, who wrote about eccentricities of life in the capital city. In 1968, their collaboration resulted in the comic strip 'Clive' (1968-1999), about a rather clueless teenage boy who tries, but fails, to keep up with the trendsetters around him. The strip was filled with a colorful cast of characters, for instance the burglar with his hopeless disguises and Clive's outrageous Grandma with her string of younger lovers and endless stories of her colorful past. One character that particularly stood out was Clive's belligerent younger sister, Augusta. So much in fact, that she eventually took center stage in the comic, which was renamed to 'Augusta' somewhere in the 1980s.
Running for over three decades, both 'Clive' and 'Augusta' became beloved appearances in the Evening Standard, as well as the Mail on Sunday's You magazine and other newspapers. During the 1970s and 1980s, the strip was also distributed in the USA by the Universal Press Syndicate. During the 1970s, several book collections with McGill and Poelsma's comic strip were released, among them 'Clive in Love' (W.H. Allen/Virgin Books, 1970) 'Clive and Augusta' (W.H. Allen/Virgin Books, 1971), 'Augusta the Great' (Barrie and Jenkins, 1977) and 'I, Augusta' (Barrie & Jenkins, 1978).
'Augusta'.
Books
In the late 1970s, Poelsma also worked with the actress Marcella Markham on the humor books 'Old is... Great!' (Exley Publications, 1978) and 'A Chauvinist is...' (Exley Publications, 1979). During the 1980s, Dominic Poelsma illustrated several books by Jean Morrison with reading games and other children's activities for the Piccolo series of publisher Pan MacMillan. Again with Angus McGill, he created 'Dogsbodies - Creative Fitness for Canines' (Souvenir Press, 2000), a comical guide to "personal pet fitness".
Humor books by Dominic Poelsma and Marcella Markham.