December 1983, a signing session of the latest Sjef van Oekel comic book in an Alkmaar bookstore. Every week I watched The smiling shaving brushWim T. Schippers was my hero. Wim T. took all the time for a conversation. He asked what I wanted to do with my life. I was 17 and didn’t really know it all yet. So Wim T. (through Sjef van Oekel) wrote a wise life lesson in my book: ‘Life, dear Jeroen, is actually too short to do anything decent with it, and too long to really let it fail, so I don’t show it!’
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