Black OP

Born in Brussels in 1954, Stephen Desberg started out as a comic book writer in 1976. He wrote short stories for Tintin magazine (Le Lombard). It was not until 1978 that this follower of Maurice Tillieux, the creator of "Gil Jourdan" (Spirou), began a career as a professional writer. In 1980 be began working for the weekly Spirou magazine (Dupuis), ensuring the continuity of the "Tif and Tondu" adventures, illustrated by Will. He then successively created the characters 421, Billy the Cat, Mic Mac Adam and Jimmy Tousseul. After releasing several albums with these characters, he partnered with the cartoonist Johan De Moor and Casterman publishing house to create "Gaspard de la nuit" (1987-1991), and in the monthly magazine A suivre... - "Les enquêtes de La Vache". These comedy series now appear in albums under the title "Lait entier" (Troisième Degree collection at Le Lombard), and are going through new developments. In a more grown up genre, again working with Will as the illustrator, Stephen Desberg published two albums in the Aire Libre collection by Dupuis: "Le Jardin des désirs" (1989) and "La Vingt-Septième Lettre" (1990). As an original and versatile writer, Desberg goes from one genre to another with ease and inventiveness, from fantasy themes to reality that aims to challenge difficult subjects, such as intolerance. In 1996 he expressed his disdain of racism with illustrator Bernard Vrancken in "Le sang noir", a romantic saga in four albums published by Le Lombard. Stephen Desberg is an American citizen who lives in Belgium and, like every son of Uncle Sam, is obliged to declare his income to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) - the tax authorities of the United States. Therefore no one can tell us about the functioning of this institution better than him. As a comic book writer, he has naturally made it the subject of a highly original series of albums. Illustrated by Bernard Vrancken, episodes of this present-day financial thriller have been coming out since 1999 under the generic title of "IR$" in the Troisième Vague collection by Le Lombard. His homeland serves as a backdrop in his other albums as well, such as "L'étoile du désert" (1996, Dargaud) - a twilight western created with Enrico Marini, or "Tosca" (2001-2003 Glénat), an uncompromising portrait of the evolution of the American mafia, created with Francis Valles. Stephen Desberg is also passionate about religious themes. He explores the mythological world of angels and demons in "Les immortels" (2001-2005, Glénat), created with Henri Reculé. He collaborated with Enrico Marini on riddles of Christian origins in "Le Scorpion" (2000-2014, Dargaud), a saga bursting with flamboyant heroes with capes and swords in eighteenth century Rome, where warriors confront monks and cardinals in an attack on the totalitarian power. In fall 2003, with Daniel Koller, he launched "Mayam" (Dargaud), a theological fantasy series recounting the travels of an ambitious Terran diplomat on a planet with a thousand competing cults. A prolific author, Desberg writes scripts for many other series, including "Miss October" (2012-2014, Le Lombard), "Sherman" (2011-2012, The Lombard) and "Sienna" (2008-2014, Bamboo). In 2014, he began writing the second volume of "Black Op" (Dargaud), a series illustrated by his friend Hugues Labiano. In 2015, with Miguel Lalo he started working on a dark thriller series "Le rédempteur" (Dargaud).

Hugues Labiano was born in Bayonne in 1963, but has always been somewhat fascinated by all things American. Yet it is actually through Spain that he began his career with "Matador" (Glénat, 1992), a series written by Gani Jakupi. He then returned to his true passion when he created "Dixie Road" (Dargaud, 1997) with Jean Dufaux, and "Mister George" (Lombard, 2003), with Rodolphe and Serge Le Tendre. It is difficult to pin him down to one genre, even though his illustrations lean towards a certain realism, he aims to distort them slightly in order to better accentuate the emotion of a face or try out unusual framing. After ten years of drawing the United States of yesterday and today, Labiano decided on a change of scenery. It didn't take long. In 2005 Stephen Desberg asked him to explore the best of both worlds through "Black OP" (Dargaud), a series focusing on CIA agents, whose work takes them from India to Afghanistan via Russia. The adventure ends in 2010 with the publication of Volume 6, but it resumes with a second cycle in 2014. In 2012, Labiano went solo and created two episodes of "Quatre coins du monde" (Dargaud). Since then we have been eagerly waiting to see where he'll take us next.