'Blessing Box'.
Menno Wittebrood is an Amsterdam-based Dutch storyboard artist and illustrator. His work includes storyboards for advertising spots and magazine illustrations, as well an occasional comic strip. Within comic circles, he is especially noted for the abstract cartoons and pantomime comics he posts on his social media channels.
Early life and background
Born in 1971 in Bergen, in the Dutch province North Holland, Menno Wittebrood got his artistic training at the Amsterdam University of the Arts between 1995 and 1999. He ranks among his major influences national and international comic artists such as Marc Bell, Dave Cooper, Benito Jacovitti, Robert Crumb, George Herriman, Hal Foster, Dick Matena, Moebius, Eric Schreurs, managaka and anime director Katsuhiro Otomo and game director Hideo Kojima.
'Who's Next?'.
Commercial art
Starting his career as a character and concept designer with the RB firm (1998-2001), Wittebrood became an illustrator/visualiser for hire through the agencies Comic House (2002-2014) and Roughmen (since 2006). Working with a variety of styles and skills, he is mostly active in the fields of illustration, character design and comic art, as well as making storyboards for commercials, short films and feature films. Among his clients are Adidas, Netflix, PlanetX, Nike, Kesselskramer, Pedri Animation, Storm Studios, Eyeworks and Flinck Film. Wittebrood's illustrations appeared in magazines like Playboy, Oor and Adformatie, and he made the storyboards for two movies with director Frans Weisz: 'Finn' (2013) and 'Het Leven is Vurrukkulluk' (2018), an adaptation of Remco Campert's novel of the same name). In 2020, Wittebrood did the storyboard for the Dutch-Norwegian co-production 'Dragon Girl' (2021), wherein the storyboard is the key between the film's live-action and visual effects.
'Onno en de Missende Munt' (Het 2e Anno Vakantieboek, 2005).
Comics
Although Wittebrood has no extensive track record in comics, his commercial assignments from time to time allowed him to work in the medium. One of his comics appeared in the September/October 2002 issue of Shell Venster, the external relations magazine of the Shell petrol company. In that same year, he created the comic strip 'Cookie de Speurneus' for Planet Internet. Between 2004 and 2006, he made illustrations and comic stories for the annual Anno holiday books, that aimed at making history comprehensible for a general audience. The books were available in Dutch museums, archives and stores of the Royal Dutch Touring Club ANWB.
'Trenchboy'.
Wittebrood also contributed three pages to the sixth volume of 'Bartkira', a community art project initiated by Ryan Humphrey, in which hundreds of artists from all over the world are collaborating to recreate all six volumes of Katsuhiro Otomo's manga series 'Akira', replacing all the characters with the cast of Matt Groening's 'The Simpsons'. Since 2021, he assists fellow Roughmen affiliate Michiel Offerman with the backgrounds and inking of his detective comic 'Luthon-Höge' for the Belgian comic magazine Maxix.
Drawing by Menno Wittebrood for the 50th anniversary of comic shop Lambiek in Amsterdam (2018).
Free work
In his spare time, Wittebrood experiments with free-form abstract illustrations and comic art, which he posts on his social media channels. Made without an initial plan or concept, these personal works explore his fascination for human behavior, islands, rock masses, films, video games, toys, dioramas and the absurdities of everyday life. He has additionally been working on a personal experimental comic called 'Trenchboy'.
Comic story by Menno Wittebrood.
Personal work: instagram.com/mennowittebrood
Commercial work: instagram.com/menno.wittebrood