Renaissance

Born in 1965 in Rouen, France, Frédéric Duval first studied history. He completed his master's degree by studying the caricatures of a newspaper during the Dreyfus Affair. He published his first book, "500 fusils," in 1995. In 2008, for comics publisher Delcourt, he published the science fiction series "Meteors," illustrated by Philippe Ogaki, before tackling an old dream with illustrator Zanzim: to adapt "Tartuffe" as a graphic novel. In 2010, he then published the first volume of the speculative fiction series "Nico" (Dargaud), alongside Philippe Berthet. In 2016, he wrote the tenth volume of "XIII Mystery" (Dargaud; Europe Comics/Cinebook in English), under the direction of Jean Van Hamme. The year 2018 marked the release of his latest science fiction series, "Renaissance" (Dargaud; Europe Comics in English), alongside Emem and Fred Blanchard. His most recent work is the masterful literary adaptation "Nymphéas Noirs" (Dupuis; "Black Water Lilies," Europe Comics), illustrated by Didier Cassegrain. In 2022, he teamed up with Michel Bussi and Noë Monin to create "Cinq Avril" (Dupuis; Europe Comics), a new series set during the Renaissance.

After going to art school in Paris at the ESAG Penninghen, Fred Blanchard started his career as a press illustrator and later went to work for Delcourt, directing several popular collections at the French publishing house. At the same time, he started taking on animation projects, supervising background work for a number of television series and even working on the movie adaptation of "Corto Maltese" in 2002. He then began to shift toward comics, and started to create designs for different series like "Spirou and Fantasio" (Dupuis), "Les Naufragés d'Ythaq" (Soleil), "Sangre" (Soleil), and "Renaissance" (Dargaud). Most recently, he has worked on the design of the series "Dernier Atlas" (Dupuis; "Last of the Atlases," Europe Comics). He is currently working on a graphic novel that will be released in 2020.

Emem was born in 1977 in a little village in Normandy (France). When he started reading, he discovered French-Belgian "bandes dessinées" and other kinds of comics. He is a self-taught storyteller. At the beginning of 2000, he participated in a few collective comics projects, where he met Mathieu Gabella. They would go on to co-create the series "Idole" (Delcourt, 2005). In 2013, Emem illustrated volume 13 of "Jour J" (Delcourt) for scriptwriters Fred Duval, Fred Blanchard and Jean-Pierre Pécaud. In 2018, he joined back up with Duval and Blanchard for "Renaissance" (Dargaud; Europe Comics in English), a science fiction series.