Cassio: The First Assassin

Stephen Desberg was born in Brussels in 1954 and started out as a comic book author in 1976, writing short stories for Tintin magazine (Le Lombard). A follower of Maurice Tillieux, the creator of "Gil Jourdan," in 1980 Desberg began working for the weekly Spirou magazine (Dupuis), taking over the "Tif and Tondu" adventure series, illustrated by Will. He then successively created the characters 421, Billy the Cat, Mic Mac Adam and Jimmy Tousseul, before gradually moving to a more adult readership, publishing two albums in the Aire Libre collection by Dupuis, alongside Will: "Le Jardin des désirs" (1989) and "La Vingt-Septième Lettre" (1990). An original and versatile writer, Desberg goes from one genre to another with ease and inventiveness. In 1996 he tackled the topic of racism with illustrator Bernard Vrancken in "Le sang noir," a romantic saga in four albums published by Le Lombard. As an American citizen, Desberg has also explored many themes linked with his other home country, as evidenced by the long-running financial thriller "IR$" with Le Lombard, also illustrated by Vrancken. America serves as a backdrop in his other albums as well, such as "L'étoile du désert" (1996, Dargaud, 2016 Europe Comics, "Desert Star"), a twilight western created with Enrico Marini. Desberg is also passionate about religious themes, having collaborated with Enrico Marini on riddles of Christian origins in "The Scorpion" (2000-2014, Dargaud, Cinebook in English), a saga bursting with flamboyant heroes with capes and swords in eighteenth-century Rome. A writer as prolific as any out there, Desberg has authored many other series over the years, including "Cassio" (2007; Europe Comics in English 2018), "Miss October" (2012; Europe Comics in English 2018), "Sherman" (2011; Europe Comics in English), and "Golden Dogs" (2014; Europe Comics in English 2016), all with Le Lombard. Along the way, he also continued work on the saga "Black Op" (2005 Dargaud, 2015 Europe Comics), a series illustrated by his friend Hugues Labiano. His recent work includes the espionage series "Jack Wolfgang" (2017, Le Lombard, Europe Comics in English), together with Henri Reculé, centered on a whip-smart wolf who is both world-famous food critic, and secret agent for the CIA.

Henri Reculé was born in 1970 in his mother's native country of Chile, which he later left for Belgium, his father's homeland, at the age of 14. He took illustration classes there at the Saint-Luc Institute in Liège, the result of which was a full album, "Le Grand Veneur," created with Jean-Luc Sala as a final study project. This collaboration won them a competition held by Le Lombard, which allowed the pair to publish "La Légende de Kynan" (Le Lombard, 1993), their first professional album. This was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between Reculé and the publisher, which was solidified with the five-volume series "Castel Armer," an epic for which Reculé took charge of both the art and script. He then met Stephen Desberg, with whom he would go on to publish a number of series, beginning with the two-part "Le Crépuscule des Anges" (Casterman), and then "Les Immortels" (Glénat). The pair of them continued their collaboration with Le Lombard with the historical thriller "Cassio" (2007; Europe Comics in English 2018), the adaptation "Le Dernier livre de la jungle" ("The Last Jungle Book," Europe Comics 2016), and the espionage adventure series "Jack Wolfgang" (2017, Europe Comics in English 2018).