Franka

Franka is a popular Dutch comic book series drawn and written since the mid-1970s by the graphic artist Henk Kuijpers.

The principal character is a strong female Dutch sleuth who solves mysteries in exotic locales.

Franka (Francesca Victoria), the lead character that the series is named after, is a young, attractive and adventurous female private investigator.

The cases she solves often take place in the worlds of art, antiquities, fashion and film, and also often feature exotic locales full of smugglers, pirates and other shady businessmen.

A single woman for long time, Franka acquired a male partner and love interest in the later volumes, the reformed art thief Rix.

Franka was not the main character in the very first adventure of the series (an eight-page story which makes up the first part of Volume #1, Het Misdaadmuseum).

Instead, Jarko (who is an increasingly minor character in all later volumes) played the central role, and Franka is only a secretary in the Criminology Museum.

Franka originally appeared in the weekly comic magazine Pep which, in 1975, merged with Sjors into Eppo.

After Sjors & Sjimmie (or Sjosji as it was known since 1994) ceased publication in 1999 Franka went on to become the subject of her own online magazine.

In February 2009 Eppo was revived as a forthnightly magazine appealing to original readers as well as their offspring; Franka is one of several household names to be included.

Franka has also been published in German, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Scandinavian languages, as well as in French (Spirou).