'Doolhof van Eeden'.
Dutch comic artist Roelof Wijtsma was born in Bombay, India (present-day Mumbay) and spent most of his childhood in Chile. Upon his return in The Netherlands, he enrolled at the Art Academy Minerva in Groningen, where he graduated with an experimental comic story in 1993. He started his professional career as an illustrator of children's books (a.o. for Wolters-Noordhoff and Jongbloed), until a grant of the Fonds BKVB gave him the opportunity to develop his dark thriller 'Getekend', that was published by Oog & Blik in June 2004. Wijtsma's use of paint, washed ink, charcoal and collages gives his book a dark and paranoid tension.
'Arin'.
Since 2000, Wijtsma has been working with writer and cartoonist Frans Le Roux on the the historical comic 'Arin en het Volk van de Hunebedbouwers', that was initatied by the Dolmen Centre in Borger. The second story was serialized in MYX magazine, and several books have been published by Edu'Actief since 2000. Another historical comic by Wijtsma is 'De Ontvoering van Philips Willem', set during the Eighty Years' War, and created in commission of De Banier and the Buren & Oranje Museum, in 2006.
'De Ontvoering van Philips Willem'.
Roelof Wijtsma has also contributed comic stories to the Groningen-based magazine Gr'nn, and to educational publications by Wolters Noordhoff. He continues to make illustrations for children's books, like the picture book series 'Oek, Kind van Hunebedbouwers' by Hein Klompmaker. His comic 'Ivo en de Vikingszoon' was serialized in BimBam, the children's section of newspaper Reformatorisch Dagblad, in 2013. Wijtsma spent eight years working on his moody solo comic 'Doolfhof van Eeden', published in a limited edition by Sherpa in 2014. Roelof Wijtsma and writer Willem Ritstier relaunched the classic Dutch soccer comic 'Roel Dijkstra' in Eppo magazine in 2016. The comic was created by Andries Brandt and Jan Steeman for the original Eppo in 1975.
In 2020 he joined 75 Dutch & Flemish comic artists to make a graphic contribution to the free collective comic book ‘Striphelden versus Corona’ (Oogachtend, Uitgeverij L, 2020). The book is intended to support comics stores who had to close their doors for two months during the lockdown at the height of the COVID-19 virus pandemic.
'Ivo en de Vikingszoon'.