De Lustige Kapoentjes

De Lustige Kapoentjes
De Lustige Kapoentjes in their most famous incarnation, by Marc Sleen. From left to right (clockwise): Lange So, Fonske, Bikini, Oscar, de Champetter and Flurk.
Author(s)	Bob De Moor (1947-1950), Marc Sleen (1950-1965), Hurey, Jean-Pol, Jef Nys, Jo
Current status / schedule	Terminated.
Launch date	1947
End date	1989
Genre(s)	Humor comics, Gag-a-day comics, children's comics

De Lustige Kapoentjes (literally: "The Joyful Rascals") was a long-running Flemish comic book series, which existed under different titles and was drawn by different artists, among whom Marc Sleen ("The Lustige Kapoentjes") and Willy Vandersteen ("De Vrolijke Bengels") are the most well known. The series was published in 't Kapoentje, the youth supplement of Het Volk, and in Ons Volkske, the youth supplement of De Standaard. They were the mascots of 't Kapoentje from 1947 until the magazine's demise in 1985.

The weekly gag-a-day comic was very popular in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. In all of its incarnations the concept was the same: a group of children play tricks on adults and frequently get their revenge on a local police officer and an older evil young adult.

In 1933 Flemish comic strip artist Eugeen Hermans, aka "Pink", published the gag-a-day comic Filipke en de Rakkers in Ons Volkske, inspired by similar American comic book series such as Martin Branner's Perry and the Rinkydinks, Rudolph Dirks' The Katzenjammer Kids and Dutch artist Frans Piët's Sjors van de Rebellenclub. In 1940 Ons Volkske had to cease publication due to the Nazi invasion of World War Two.

On April 3, 1947, a new magazine was launched called 't Kapoentje, where Willy Vandersteen published a new version of the same concept called "De Vrolijke Bengels" ("The Joyful Rascals"). The characters in this series were: