LEWIS TRONDHEIM, Story/Co-writer

Lewis Trondheim was born in 1964. After an uneventful childhood in Fontainebleau, he attended an advertising school where he met Jean-Christophe Menu and discovered that comics don’t have to be limited to 46 color page volumes. A year later, he developed his graphic style by making the fanzine ACCI H3319. He then joined Menu, Stanislas, Mattt Konture, Killoffer, and David B producing the magazine Labo for Futuropolis. Together, they founded the Association’s comic book publishing house in 1990. A year later, Lewis worked in a workshop with other designers in the Nawak studio and in 1992 published an astonishing 500-page book, Lapinot et le Carottes de Patagonie. He then drew his autobiographical comic strip, Approximate Continuum Comics, for Cornelius. In January 1994, Lewis won the Alph-Art Coup de coeur award in Angoulême for his book Slaloms. During this decisive year, he became a dad, signed the new Lapinot series to Dargaud, and left Paris for the south of France.

Between 1997-1999, he gave birth to a number of projects including heroic-fantasy and a series of children’s books. In 2000, he published a large number of youth series at Delcourt, including Kaput and Zösky, Go Tales with José Parrondo, Three Paths with Sergio Garcia, and The King Catastrophe with Fabrice Parma. The first two were adapted into cartoons.

In the summer of 2004, he began a new stage in his prolific career by creating the Shampoo collection at Editions Delcourt, which brought many unique talents together. In June 2005, Lewis was promoted to the rank of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. In January 2006, he received the Grand Prize of the city of Angoulême.

OLIVIER VATINE, Co-creator/Art Director

Olivier Vatine was born on April 29, 1959 in the city of Le Havre. He made his debut in comics in 1984 with short stories published in Circus magazine. His collaboration with Thierry Cailleteau began that same year, creating the characters of Fred and Bob, two teenaged dragracers and blunderers who went on to have a dozen complete adventures together. Vatine and Cailleteau then went to Fluide Glacial magazine, where they created the intrepid adventurer Stan Pulsar, galactic hero. When Editions Delcourt picked up Fred and Bob as well as Stan Pulsar for publication, Cailleteau and Vatine offered them Aquablue, a longer, more dramatic sci-fi tale. The series met great success and stood out as one of the top French series of the time.

Olivier Vatine is full of imagination and activities. Without abandoning Aquablue, he multiplied his experience by illustrating advertisments, designing sets for animation, story-boarding films, etc. He eventually returned to comics as a scriptwriter, including a western, Adios Palomita, and a pirate fantasy series with Pecqueur, Blanchard, and Cassegrain. He also designed and illustrated the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy for Dark Horse. At the end of 2007, he devoted himself to other projects, such as his development house, Comix Buro.