Born in Brussels on January 16th, 1939, Jean Van Hamme is a great artistic talent who holds degrees in finance, journalism, and civic law.
After a brilliant international career, he left his job as general manager of Philips Belgium in 1976 to become a writer.
While writing six novels based on the adventures of "Largo Winch" for Mercure de France, he also took up scriptwriting for the magazine "Tintin, " including strips for artist Attanasio ("Modeste et Pompon"), a mythological adventure ("Epoxy"), and episodes of "Corentin" for Paul Cuvelier, "Michael Logan" for André Beautemps, "Domino" for Cheret, "Mr Magellan" for Géri, and, for Dany, "Arlequin" and "Histoire sans héros" ("Story Without a Hero, " Cinebook/Europe Comics).
He then started on the legendary "Thorgal" saga for Grzegorz Rosinski (Le Lombard, Cinebook/Europe Comics in English), with whom he later created "Le Grand Pouvoir du Chninkel" for Casterman.
He then created the "XIII" series alongside Vance at Dargaud, and "Les Maîtres de l'orge" for Vallès at Éditions Glénat.
We can also thank him for several television scripts (including the adaptation of "Maîtres de l'Orge"), and for the cinema ("Diva" by Jean-Jacques Beneix and "Meurtres à domicile" by Marc Lobet).
In 1987, he managed publisher Dupuis, launching the best-selling series "Largo Winch" with Philippe Francq, and devising what would later become the "Aire Libre" collection, for which he wrote the stories "S.
O. S. Bonheur, " illustrated by Griffo, and "Lune de guerre, " with Hermann.
Having closely examined the techniques of popular storytelling, Van Hamme has become a scriptwriter who turns everything he writes into gold, including bringing the characters of "Blake et Mortimer" back to life in 1996 with illustrator Ted Benoît, continuing in the tradition of Edgar P. Jacobs.
In addition to teaching at the Institut d'Arts de Diffusion (Louvain-la-Neuve), he has also served as chairman of the Centre Belge de le Bande Dessinée.
Born in Wilrijk, near Antwerp, Werner Goelen, otherwise known as Griffo, studied for seven years at the Academy of Fine Arts.
He then lived for three years within a community of artists, where he discovered comic books through an underground magazine the community published, called "Spruit." Meanwhile, he was also doing illustrations and caricatures for the magazines Mimo, Extra and Humo.
In 1975, Griffo took on Franquin's series "Modeste et Pompon" for Tintin magazine. But he just wasn't all that convinced by his dabbling in comedy, and so he got into advertising, with a little foray into erotic illustration for Biofot Publishing.
He traveled widely, and then returned to realism with the publisher Michel Deligne, for whom he created "L'ordre du Dragon Noir" (1982), a Bob Wilson adventure which was a precursor to the series "Munro, " which Griffo published with Dupuis, in collaboration with author François Di Giorgio.
Philippe Vandooren, then editor-in-chief of Spirou magazine, offered him the opportunity of illustrating "S.
O. S. Bonheur, " a story conceived by Jean Van Hamme for a TV series that never came to fruition. This trilogy, converted into comic book format, inaugurated in 1988 the Aire Libre collection, which would again feature Griffo in 1994 with "Monsieur Noir" (Europe Comics 2017), a two-part fantasy series with author Jean Dufaux.
As he became increasingly inspired by adult comics, Griffo focused his output on storylines by Jean Dufaux, and the pair went on to produce the series "Béatifica Blues" (Dargaud 1986), "Giacomo C." (Glénat 1988), and "Samba Bugatti" (Dargaud 1992).
He also collaborated with Patrick Cothias on the historical epic "Cinjis Qan" (Glénat 1996), and "Le Pension du docteur Eon" for the Signé collection at Le Lombard (1998).
He stayed with Le Lombard for "Vlad, " created in collaboration with Swolfs, to be followed by "Sherman" and "Golden Dogs" with scriptwriter Stephen Desberg (Europe Comics in English).
