Coco Ouwerkerk
Romance
Coco Ouwerkerk (1992, known online as Colourbee) is a comic artist/animator, born and raised in Arnhem (Netherlands). Studied two years at ArtEZ Comic Design and three years at HKU 2D animation and obtained her HBO diploma there.
She has published “Small Press” comic books since 2016, including: Colourbee in de Pocket, L.O.C.O, The Meeting, together with two friends the manga Oyasumi. In 2023 there was a successful kickstarter for a small press along with 4 others with 18+ comic shorts called Sticky Pages.
Her debut album, Acception #Losers, was released in December 2017 by Uitgeverij Syndikaat.
This album was nominated for “Youth Album of the Year” in 2018. Since January 2019, Acception has been published together with WEBTOON as a digital comic, which can be read for free in English, French, and Spanish on the WEBTOON app. With more than 900k followers, Acception is Coco’s greatest success yet. You can now read 6 seasons on WEBTOON and there will be more to come. In the Netherlands, Volume 1: #Losers, and Volume 2: #Friendship, are now available as Dutch comic albums. In 2025, volume 1 and 2 will also be released in the USA by Publisher WEBTOON UNCROLLED. Volume 3 and more will appear at a later date in both Dutch and English.
What do you love to do for fun?
Watching anime, reading comics, big fan of Nintendo games and playing TCG like Pokemon/Digimon/Yu-gi-oh.
Making Japanese snacks like onigiri and takoyaki.
Staying in and playing games with my boyfriend or going for a walk in the woods or city together.
Do something with friends. Drawing, watching movies, playing video games.
Who or what inspires you the most, and why?
Animals and nature inspire me a lot. A lot of fashion elements in Acception can be traced back to something animal or nature related. These things inspired my favorite shows like Pokemon, which uses animals as inspiration. Or Bluey, which uses every breed of dog. Or Myths, which uses reptiles to imagine dragons, etc. I love fantasy animals based on what we see around us. It makes you feel more one with nature if you see art inspired by it. It’s something we are all familiar with.
Awards and honors:
Nominated for youth comic of the year 2018 (Netherlands)
Location:
Mediums:
Creative Process:
Art Process for personal comic projects:
I make clear character designs. Colouring moodboard. Design the overall style. Write a finished story with clear genre for the target audience. With a somewhat open middle to be able to change stuff for the better if needed. But the beginning/middle/end is there. I thumbnail the pages. While making the pages I sometimes see better ways to illustrate the story and change small parts for better storytelling. I mostly work digital but for short comics I work with watercolor, copic markers, ink, pencils. When my comic is finished I print it and sell it on markets and online. I’ll make sure to promote my comic before it’s finished.
Art Process for assignments:
I first want to call or in real life meeting with my project partners/client to make a clear plan. I also would like to set up either an app or group discord to contact for quick questions if needed. If the assignment is only for a few illustration or a small project I’ll handle that with emails and calls. I will let the client know the steps I take and ask what steps they want to see from me. I always show sketches and ideas first. Then the finished black and white and lastly the colored version. Every round I want feedback if needed so that there is no confusion in the project. And we don’t have to do changes in the end.
Specialties:
Action-adventure, Advertising, Animals, Black & white, Board books, Book Covers, Branding, Character design, Coloring, Concept art, Drama, Fantasy, Graphic novel interior art, Humor, Illustration, Indie comics, Inking, Manga, Middle Grade, Moving storyboard, Non-fiction, Penciling, Picture books, Romance, Sci-fi, Slice-of-life, Storyboarding, Toy design, Writing, Young Adult
Visit Coco at:
Colourbee.co (still working on the website, nothing to see yet)
Instagram: Colourbee4 https://www.instagram.com/colourbee4/
WEBTOON creator profile: https://www.webtoons.com/p/community/en/u/colourbee
Forthcoming books:
Published books:
Acception Volume 1 & 2 (DUTCH) (Syndikaat, 2017)
Acception Volume 1: Losers (ENGLISH) (Webtoons Unscrolled, 2025)
Acception Volume 2: Friendship (ENGLISH) (Webtoons Unscrolled)
Available for School Visits:
I have visited highschools for presentations about how I got to becoming a Webtoon artist.
I visit my old art school once a year to teach a comic project for a week. And also do presentations on how to start a webcomic.
I have been asked to do some art-related workshops, from coloring for kids to making your own button to model art workshops. Or presentations about my work to comic-related events. Been on 2 different panels, one at Dutch Comic Con and one in Rotterdam Comic Con.
I’m not really open to do them much because I’m really busy with my Webtoon work so sometimes I have to say no. But once every few months is fine. I like to be around people so I try my best to make time.
Published Books
Shauna J. Grant
Romance
Shauna J. Grant is a cartoonist and illustrator with the magical power to create cuteness. Born and raised in NYC during the boom of Japanese anime and manga, her artwork is heavily influenced by shoujo and magical girls, with a mix of Western cartoon flare. Adding diversity into the comic world is her biggest goal and she’s on a mission to create stories starring Black girls as the adorable heroines of their own tales.
She’s most proud of being part of Black Comix Returns, curated by John Jennings and Damian Duffy, and Encyclopedia of Black Comics by Sheena Howard. She’s currently signed onto two graphic novels to be published by First Second.
What do you love to do for fun?
For fun I love reading romance books! It feels like the dorkiest thing ever but I love seeing two characters butting heads as they get used to each other’s differences, and discovering a mutual love and respect for each other.
Who or what inspires you the most, and why?
It’s easy for me to say (and, well, I often do say) that Sailor Moon is my biggest inspiration! Watching it as a child made me want to create characters and stories of my own and even now, having reached my thirties, I still get swoony when I see anything Sailor Moon-related. There wasn’t a lot of media geared towards girls that felt so empowering while also recognizing the strength in femininity and relationships. Sailor Moon was clumsy, struggled with school, and preferred to just eat, sleep, and play games all day…but when duty called, she was always there to save the day.
Even more importantly than Sailor Moon, I must say my mother is a true inspiration. She has always been my biggest cheerleader from day one. She was a single mother who raised me on the tough streets of the Bronx and made sure I knew what love was and always put me in places that would foster my growth. Mother-daughter relationships can be very intricate, even when full of love, and it’s something that I’m interested in writing about in my stories as well.
Mediums:
Specialties:
Art Process:
I start my art process with lots and lots of doodles to get my ideas down. They tend to be very loose as I’m just trying to get down the feel of the piece. What emotion am I focused on? What composition best suits it?
From here, I’ll tighten up my doodles and start my penciling process. Either I’ll draw right on top of the doodle, cleaning up areas as I go, or I’ll put a new layer on top and redraw everything neater with the doodle being used as reference. Once I’m satisfied, I’ll ink the image on a new layer and from there I give the illustration a quick coloring to see what colors will work before I decide on a palette.
I tend to do best with pastel colors and go for a whimsical, dreamy, and eye-catching color scheme. I try to keep things as simple as possible with my coloring, with a little bit of airbrushed shading, some crisp shaded areas, and lots of highlights to make the colors pop. Once finished, I’ll color the lineart so the whole piece looks delicious like candy!
Awards and honors:
Top 20 Up and Coming Black Artists, Comics Alliance, 2016
Best artist, the Glyph Awards, 2018
2023-2024 MO Denny O’Neil Graphic Novel List – Selections: Grades K-2 – Mimi and the Boo-hoo Blahs
School Library Journal Starred Review 2023 – Mimi and the Boo-hoo Blahs
TLA Little Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List, 2024 – Mimi and the Boo-hoo Blahs
2024 ALA Best Graphic Novels for Children – Reading List: Young Readers (PreK-2nd Grade) Fiction – Mimi and the Boo-hoo Blahs
Imagination Soup’s 2024 100 Best Chapter Books for 2nd Graders (7 Year Olds) – Mimi and the Cutie Catastrophe
2024-2025 TX Cypress-Fairbanks ISD Recommended Reading List: Ribbon Reads – Mimi and the Boo-hoo Blahs
Location:
Visit Shauna J. Grant at:
Available for School Visits:
I’ve done school visits in the past where I show off my illustrations (on projectors) and read through my comics with the kids. I use these moments to encourage a love for creating art, being yourself, and feeling no shame for liking something that’s not stereotypically masculine. With older kids I go more in depth over the art process and pursuing art as a career.
Forthcoming books:
Untitled Memoir, First Second (TBA)
Published books:
Natural, Alien, Virginity, Backstage – (Dirty Diamonds issues #6- #9, 2015-2018)
My Cute Girl! – Can I Pet Your Werewolf, (Kel McDonald, 2017)
Our Story – Secret Loves of Geeks, (Dark Horse, 2018)
Mimi and the Cutie Catastrophe, (Scholastic, 2022)
Mimi and the Boo-Hoo Blahs, (Scholastic, 2023)
History Comics: Rosa Parks & Claudette Colvin, written by Tracy Baptiste (Macmillan, 2023)
Baby-Sitters Little Sister #10: Karen’s Prize, written by Ann Martin (Scholastic, 2025)
Baby-Sitters Little Sister #12: Karen’s Surprise, written by Ann Martin (Scholastic, 2026)
Published Books
