Jessica Blandy

Renaud Denauw was born in Mouscron (Belgium) in 1936. He graduated from the college of Saint-Luc in Tournai with a degree in advertising and lithography. His classmates included a certain Raoul Cauvin, whom he would meet again later while working for the magazine "Spirou." After spending a year in advertising, Renaud adapted the novels of Fleuve Noir as comic strips for the pocket magazines of Éditions Aredit. Keen to improve his talent, he started working on "Spirou" in 1975 as well as, under the pseudonym "Sylvain," publishing the (very revealing) adventures of "Merline" in the monthly magazines of Éditions des Archers. He later left "Spirou" for "Tintin," where editor in chief Jean-Luc Vernal proposed that he work on a new project with scriptwriter Jean Dufaux. The result was short-lived, but would ultimately lead to a new partnership on the long-running series "Jessica Blandy" (Dupuis, Europe Comics in English), which debuted in 1987.

Jean Dufaux has always told stories that bring together words and images. Initially attracted by the 7th art, he studied film production at the Institut des Arts et Diffusion in Brussels. But words remained such an important part of his life that he became a journalist, playwright and novelist, before once and for all embracing his true calling as a comic book author. Over his career, Jean Dufaux has produced a massive body of work, comprising some 200 titles and counting. His work is original and fiercely independent of trends, holding more complexity than might be apparent at first glance: "Complainte des landes perdues" (Dargaud, "Lament of the Lost Moors" Cinebook), "Double masque" (Dargaud, "Game of Masks" Europe Comics), "Murena" (Dargaud, Europe Comics in English), "Rapaces" (Dargaud, "Raptors" Europe Comics), "Djinn" (Dargaud, Europe Comics in English), "Croisade" (Le Lombard, "Crusade" Cinebook), "Barracuda" (Dargaud, Cinebook in English), "Sortilèges" (Dargaud, "Spellbound" Europe Comics), "Loup de Pluie" (Dargaud, "Rain Wolf" Europe Comics), Dixie Road (Dargaud, Europe Comics in English), "Saga Valta" (Le Lombard, Europe Comics in English), "Conquistador" (Glénat)... The list goes on. This immense mosaic that rejects neither the exhilaration of the paperback novel nor the narrative ellipses of cinema aims above all to be a work of pleasure and of enchantment, in the fantastic and occult sense of the term. His wildly successful series, selling millions of copies and garnering numerous prizes and awards, have been published across Europe, Japan, and the United States. Jean Dufaux is president of the jury for the Diagonale Prize, awarded annually in Belgium to outstanding comic book artists, and in France Jean Dufaux was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2009.