Onliners #1 - 'Lucia' (2016).
Frans Mensink is a Dutch cartoonist and illustrator, specialized in making erotic comics and pin-up drawings on commission. Among his mainstream comic projects have been commercial albums about the cities of Nijmegen, Helmond and Venlo, as well as the daily strip 'Henk & Gerda' in the newspaper Metro. His erotic series have included 'Kristina, Queen of Vampires' (2005-2010), 'Onliners' (2016) and 'DemoneX' (2022). He should not be confused (but often is) with the other Frans Mensink (AKA Fransmuis), a cartoonist from Amsterdam, born in 1953.
Pin-up drawing by Frans Mensink (2025).
Early life and career
Frans Mensink was born in 1959 in the city of Zwolle, Overijssel, where he has continued to live and work. While he didn't come from a typical artistic family, although his sister spent several years working as a clown and alternative theater maker. Among Mensink's main artistic influences have been Frank Frazetta, Milo Manara and Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri.
Before he turned to drawing full time, Mensink spent ten years working as a customs officer, doing field duty at the "green border", a generally weakly protected section of the national border. During his period, he created the satirical gag strip 'Leo & Lucy' for the Douanebond, a union of customs personnel. Another early comic was the gag strip 'Igor, Metal Mastino' in the heavy metal magazines Aardschok (The Netherlands) and Metal Hammer (Germany, UK). He also illustrated albums covers for rock and metal bands. An assignment for a comic book based on the TV series 'Pompie de Robodoll' by Tom Manders Jr. was completed, but remained unpublished. When in the mid-1990s the border controls were abolished, Mensink switched to a professional career in comics and cartoons.
'Leo & Lucy', for Douanebond.
City comics
In 1995, Mensink was one of the artists for the 'Jules en Ollie' series by KBU Uitgevers. In each album, the two detectives solve a case in a different Dutch city, while visiting all the popular hotspots. Local shopkeepers, catering industry and other attractions who sponsor the book's production received a cameo depiction in one of the story's panels. Based on a script by Huibert van der Meer, Mensink illustrated the episode about Nijmegen, 'Nare Blaren in Nijmegen' (1995).
'De Zaak: 't Heen-en-weertje Helmond' (1997).
Between 1997 and 1998, the publishing house Concept released a similar series with varying main characters called 'De Zaak'. Again with writer Van der Meer, Frans Mensink provided artwork for the volumes about Helmond ('De Zaak: 't Heen-en-weertje Helmond', 1997) and Venlo ('De Zaak: Vuurwerk in Venlo', 1997).
Other artists for these collections were Luc Verschuuren, Richard van de Pol, L. Swinkels, Carry Brugman, Maarten Wolterink, René Bergmans, Martin Rube, Eric Mezon and Arie van Vliet, with Huibert van der Meer, Harry Jansen, Bert van Rijsingen, Mireille van Heesch and Liesbeth Felix providing most of the scriptwriting.
'Igor', for Aardschok magazine.
Commercial art and comics
For the German market, Mensink made sports comics for specialized magazines about American football (Touch Down) and basketball. In the Netherlands, his cartoons appeared in Golf magazine. His artwork additionally appeared in the Hard Rock/Heavy Metal notebooks and in Vuurwerkkrant. During a period of 15 years, Mensink did storyboard art and visualizations for several international advertising agencies and corporations, for instance TBWA, DDB, BBDO, Mazda, Volkswagen, Dove and Langnese. During the 1990s, he provided computer graphics to the VPRO television series 'Zeeuws Meisje'. Around 2005, Mensink also had a daily gag comic in the free public transport newspaper Metro, called 'Henk & Gerda'.
'Kristina, Queen of Vampires 3' (2010).
Erotic art
During the 21st century, Mensink specialized in creating erotic comics and illustrations, which are both explicit and humorous. Between 2005 and 2010, he released the pornographic comic book trilogy 'Kristina, Queen of Vampires' with the American publishing company NBM. For Dark Dragon Books in the Netherlands, he created two volumes of 'Onliners' (2016), a pantomime comic about erotic encounters online. In 2021, this comic was also published in French by Éditions Tabou under the title 'CoquinNet'. For this French publisher, Mensink additionally created 'DemoneX' (2022), a comic about a hole in the dimensions, with trolls and witches in another dimension. However, most of his output has been making visualizations of erotic fantasies by commission, mostly for private clients from the USA.
Pin-up drawing by Frans Mensink (2025).