'Laagland' #1 (2025).
Marcel Ozymantra is a Dutch writer, poet, essayist, painter and comic artist, as well as one of the driving forces of the literary-cultural magazine Sintel. During the 1990s, he self-published the amateur comic magazine 'Project Uhmm...' with a friend, but didn't return to the medium until 2025 with his comic book series 'Laagland'.
Early life and influences
In 1970, Marcel Ozymantra was born into a middle-class family as Marcel van Breda in Hilversum, where he was also partially raised. His graphical and literary influences have been wide and varied, ranging from writers (William Burroughs, Henry Miller, William Gibson), poets (Ted Hughes, Lucebert, Hendrik Marsman) and painters (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Asger Jorn, Pablo Picasso). In terms of comics, he has been influenced by American comic book creators (John Buscema, Chris Claremont, Bill Sienkiewicz), European artists (Albert Uderzo, Willy Vandersteen, Jean-Claude Mézières), graphic novelists (Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison), alternative cartoonists (Los Bros Hernandez, Dave Sim, Eddie Campbell) and the underground movement (S. Clay Wilson, Peter Pontiac, Robert Crumb).
During the 1990s, he was trained to become a drawing teacher at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. Later in life, he has worked as a teacher in drawing and handicraft at some Amsterdam schools, and since 2022 as a tour guide at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in Amstelveen.
'Jaws' from Project Uhm... #12.
Amateur comics
During the early 1990s, Ozymantra, then still under his real name, ventured into small press cartooning under the banner Waanzin Comics. After a short while, he joined forces with Remco Weg of Bad Comics to form the ZinBed Comics imprint. Between March 1990 and 1992, they released sixteen issues and a couple of specials of the amateur comic magazine Project Uhm..., which were distributed among friends and put on sale at the Amsterdam comic shops Wonderland and Lambiek. While they mostly filled the early issues with their own comics, they quickly attracted a wide range of other contributors, including Koen Brozens, Steven Geeregat, Eric Hebben, Gerben den Heeten, Dennes Kreuning, Alex Storcken, Khoi Tran and Dimitri Zwagers.
Marcel van Breda's recurring feature in Project Uhm... was 'Jaws Ontheground', about the rise and fall of a master criminal. Among his other contributions to the zine were 'Sjaan Opendown' (a spin-off about one of the prostitutes from the Jaws comic), 'Grote Ogen' (about a cat who gets stuck behind a fence) and 'Zombie' (about someone who is so stoned that he almost falls apart), as well as the scripts for a couple of gags about a teacher, drawn by Jochen Markhorst. Together with Gerben den Heeten, he briefly returned to comics in 1995 with the one-shot comic 'Het Projekt', for which he created the autobiographical stories 'Depressum Requiescat' (drawn by Koen Brosens) and 'Kots' (drawn by himself), dealing with his life in Amsterdam's alternative art and drugs scene.
'Kots' (Het Projekt, 1995).
Ozymantra activities
From the mid-1990s on, he assumed the pen name Marcel Ozymantra, left comics and began exploring other art forms, like poetry, prose and painting. In his work, he combines realism with fantasy, showing both the realistic consequences of some fantastic action, and the fantastic nature of the real world, where friendships and romances can emerge from all the coincidences of ordinary life, or how special reality actually is when you look at it properly. In 2024, he released a collection of literary science fiction short stories, 'Schrodingers Planeet'.
Cartoon (2019).
Ozymantra's illustrations and designs have appeared in the short novel 'De Dokter in het Donker' by Charles van Wettum (Stichting Fantastische Vertellingen, 2023), announcements of the Popradar stage in The Hague and on the local Amsterdam TV station IBTV. Since 2015, he forms the Noise Poetry duo Sindroom Stockholm with guitarist Dess Sart.
Since 2015, Ozymantra is one of the driving forces behind Sintel, an "offline magazine" dedicated to prose, poetry, essays, paintings, comics and Dutch music lyrics. Since 2017, he has also been an editor for Zone 5300, the pop-cultural comic magazine edited by his brother-in-law Tonio van Vugt. He is in a relationship with singer/musician Gio Rosetta, who performs as a one-woman band under the name Giovanna's Zoo.
'Laagland' #1 (2025).
Laagland
Inspired by the 'Cartoonist Kayfabe' YouTube series by Ed Piskor and Jim Ruggart, Marcel Ozymantra found the courage to start working on a new comic book series, for the occasion using the pen name MOZ. After a successful crowdfunding campaign, the first issue of the self-published 'Laagland' comic book was presented on 27 June 2025 at comic shop Lambiek. A strange mix of superhero parody, pop music, comic book humor, literary aspirations, formal tricks and social realism, the first 'Laagland' issue mainly took place in the Amsterdam East district. Combining everyday realism with absurd superheroes, the first issue focused on Red Gladiator and Esmee, who both deliver mail for the Dutch postal services. Intended as a longer series with different lead characters, the first issue also introduced Face Horse, Bonemachine, Rogue Storm and Star Woman.
Marel Ozymantra. Photo © Casper de Weerd.