Jean Van Hamme
Jean, knight Van Hamme (born 16 January 1939) is a Belgian novelist and comic book writer. He has written scripts for a number of Belgian/French comic series, including "Histoire sans héros", "Thorgal", "XIII" and "Largo Winch". Biography. Early years. After studying business administration at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, he worked as a journalist and in the marketing department of Philips. In the meantime, he started writing, and one of his first scripts was adapted by Paul Cuvelier in 1968. This erotic comic named Epoxy was published by the controversial publisher Éric Losfeld , who prior to that also had published similarly themed comics like Jean-Claude Forest's Barbarella and Robert Gigi's Scarlett Dream. In 1976, Van Hamme became a full-time writer, and in the next few years he published seven novels and some movie scripts, e.g. for "Diva". Thorgal, XIII and Largo Winch. Van Hamme's main breakthrough came in 1977, when he created the Viking hero "Thorgal" for Grzegorz Rosiński, a relatively unknown Polish comic artist. The mix of medieval legends and heroic fantasy soon became a huge success in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine "Tintin". The duo won  major awards in the French and Belgian comic book industry. In the next decade, Jean Van Hamme created two new bestselling series, "XIII" with William Vance and "Largo Winch" (based on his own novels) with Philippe Francq. Other series like "Les maîtres de l'orge" (lit. "The Masters of Barley") and "Chninkel" have received more critical acclaim but lower sales. The fame of Van Hamme as one of the major comic authors of Europe is quite established. The artists he works with draw the characters in a realistic style, even if the stories themselves tend to verge towards fantasy. "Les maîtres  de l'orge" and "Largo Winch" have both been made into TV series, and "XIII", Thorgal, and "" have been adapted into video games. Blake and Mortimer. After the death of Edgar Pierre Jacobs, the last unfinished "Blake and Mortimer" story was finished by Bob de Moor, and Van Hamme was approached by the publisher to write new stories. The first one, "The Francis Blake Affair", appeared in 1996 and was a huge success, and Van Hamme has since created two more "Blake and Mortimer" stories. In 2002, Jean Van Hamme announced his intention to write fewer comics, and to concentrate more  on theatre and film scripts, but seems to have changed his mind again and has since created two new stories. In 2006, he ended his run on "Thorgal" with album 29, "Le Sacrifice." He has also announced his intention to create a spin-off series of "Thorgal", focusing on his son Jolan. In fact, a new duo, Grzegorz Rosinski and Yves Sente continued the series with four more albums (#30 to #33) which constitute the "Jolan Cycle". Van Hamme is one of the best selling European comics writers, with many of his series in the comics bestseller lists each year . In 2006, Van Hamme's final volume of "Thorgal" placed fifth in the French list with 280,000 copies published, while "Lady S.", with Philippe Aymond, had 90,000 copies. In 2005, "XIII" and "Largo Winch" shared the fourth place with 500,000 copies each. In 2010, he was the second-bestselling author of comics in France, after Christophe Arleston but before Albert Uderzo and Hergé, with 1.05 million copies sold.