Born in 1958 in Namur, Denis Lapière started his sociology studies after having had a taste of the thrills of motor racing. In the mid 1980s he was one of the founders of the Tropica BD bookstore in Charleroi, which became the meeting point for many artists. Once he started getting some contacts, Lapière started writing scripts, which gradually found their place in the editorial landscape. He started at Spirou, producing short stories.
He then published his first album in 1987: "Mauro Caldi" (Éditions Michel Constant Mirror). In 1990, he started "Charly" with Magda, a fantasy thriller that had Spirou readers on the edge of their seats. In the years that followed, Denis wrote scripts for several titles in the Aire Libre collection, a new means of expression for adult comics at Dupuis. With Jean-Philippe Stassen, he created "Le Bar du Vieux Français", which won numerous awards around the world.
For Paul Gillon, he wrote "The Last of Cinemas" about the fate of a film producer during the twentieth century. While continuing his adult comics collaborations (with Pellejero and Mezzomo in particular), Lapière continued to work on more family-orientated strips like "Ludo" (with Bailly and Mathy), "Oscar" (with Durieux) and the reboot of "Tif et Tondu" (with Sikorski). In the 2000s, Denis Lapière had several experiences as a film screenwriter (with Pierre-Paul Renders).
He also tried out an editorial role (launching collections Punaise" and "Puceron at Dupuis). In early 2010 he led two major projects: a collaborative work called "Alter Ego" and the new adventures of "Michel Vaillant", which he co-wrote with Philippe Graton. With nearly one hundred albums under his belt, Denis Lapière is one of today's most accomplished writers.
Born in 1963 in Brussels, Pierre-Paul Renders graduated in classical philology (UCL) and got a diploma in directing (IAD, Louvain-la-Neuve).
He lives in Hennuyères with his wife and their three children. Having left IAD, he and his five classmates started a production company (AA Belgians Films). They created their first collective feature film sketches, with a very Belgian surrealist style, "Les Sept Péchés Capitaux" (1992), based on which he created a short film "La Tendresse". After a detour via television and documentaries (mainly for Doctors Without Borders), he directed "Thomas est amoureux" (2001), his first feature film, with screenplay by Philippe Blasband; a unique piece that's very difficult to categorize.
It received awards at film festivals in Venice, Montreal, Angers, Gerardmer, Paris, Espoo and Buenos Aires . In collaboration with Denis Lapière he wrote "Comme tout le monde", a script that was simultaneously turned into a sociological romantic comedy (2006, Khalid Maadour, Caroline Dhavernas, Thierry Lhermitte, Chantal Lauby ...) and a graphic novel (illustrated by Rudy Spiessert and published in 2007 by Dupuis).
In 2006, he created the concept for the series "Alter Ego" and presented it to Denis Lapière and Dupuis. Since 2004 he has been writing and directing workshops for students at IAD. He also runs courses for film actors and also does the odd bit of script-doctoring. Since 1990 he has also been a comics columnist for the Journal du Médecin.
Mathieu Reynès was born in the Paris region in 1977, but spent his childhood on the Basque coast.
After several years of studying science in Bordeaux, he turned his attention to cartoons and 3D animation by joining CNBDI Angoulême, first as a student and then as a tutor. After a few years, he decided to devote himself to comics. His first album, "Banana Fight" was released by Paquet in 2002, in collaboration with script writer Frédéric Brrémaud . The duo then created 2 volumes of the series "Sexy Gun" (éditions Soleil) and three volumes of "Lola Bogota" (Bamboo).
Afterwards he produced several comedy series also published by Bamboo, all co-written with Brrémaud: "Les tennismen" (illustrated by Bertolucci, 1 volume published), "Les informaticiens" (illustrated by Toulon, 4 volumes published), "Toutou & Cie" (illustrated by Soffritt, two volumes published) and "Les Maîtres Nageurs" (3 volumes published) that he illustrated himself. In 2007, Mathieu Reynès embarked on the adventure of "Alter Ego" alongside Denis Lapière and Pierre-Paul Renders.
Meanwhile, he wrote the script to the album "La Mémoire de l'Eau", illustrated by Valérie Vernay, which was released in 2012 by Dupuis.
