Toonder studios In 1960, at the age of 17, Matena started working as a volunteer at the
Toonder studios. He helped with the drawing projects of
Tom Puss (1962–1963) and
Panda (1961–1968). In 1968, his first own comic appeared in the comic magazine
Pep.
Freelance period In 1964, Matena started working as a freelancer, in the beginning mainly for the Toonder studios. He drew his own comic
Polletje Pluim. For
Pep, he drew
De Argonautjes (1968–1973) and
Ridder Roodhart (1969–1971). He wrote scenarios for the ''Macaroni's
(1971–1975) and Blook'' (1972–1973). Matena later worked for the cartoon magazine
Eppo, and wrote four scenarios for the comic series
Storm (1978–1980). Under the pseudonym Dick Richards he wrote eight scenarios for the comic
De Partners (1976–1984), drawn by
Carry Brugman. In 1977, Matena changed his drawing style and created his first realistic comic,
Virl.
Foreign period From 1982 until 1984, he lived in
Spain and worked for the art agency
Selecciones Ilustradas. For the comic magazine
Titanic, he created two starship stories. After his move to
Belgium, he created the comics
De laatste dagen van Edgar Allan Poe,
Gauguin en Van Gogh and
Mozart & Casanova.
Spin-off of Storm and after With stories by
Martin Lodewijk, Matena drew three spin-off comics of
Storm. The series of these
Storm albums are called
Kronieken van de Tussentijd. He used his pseudonym John Kelly at first; the last comic is published under his own name. In 1997, he started again with the comic
Tom Puss. Two stories were published in the Dutch version of the magazine
Donald Duck.
Comics of Dutch literature Matena drew comics of classical Dutch literary books. In 2003, he won the
Bronzen Adhemar award. He was the first non-Flemish comics artist to receive this honor. == Death ==