Gilles Chaillet

Gilles Chaillet was born in Paris, and developed an early interest in comics, especially those published in Tintin, and history. Between 1965 and 1977, he worked for Studios Dargaud, where he worked for reviews like Bonjour Bonheur, Chez Nous and Les Grandes Classiques du Roman Film. He also published a couple of gags in Tintin magazine in 1966.

With Roger Pierre and Jean-Marc Thibault he worked on 'Maudits Rois Fainéants' and 'Z'Heureux Rois Z'Henri'. He did the coloring for series like 'Achille Talon', 'Blueberry' and 'Tanguy et Laverdure', and completed a 'Barbe-Rouge' adventure in 1968 when Victor Hubinon was ill. Chaillet anonymously illustrated 14 booklets written by Guy Vidal featuring the adventures of Idéfix, the little dog from the Astérix comics, by Albert Uderzo. He also provided artwork for promotional material related to 'Astérix', such as labels for mustard pots.

In 1976 he was assigned by Jacques Martin to take over the artwork of the 'Lefranc' series. Chaillet cooperated on the series until 1996. He also illstrated two books in the series 'Les Voyages d'Alix' and during the 1990s, he did the historical texts in Jacques Martin's educational 'Voyages d'Orion' books, while he also illustrated two installments.

In 1980 Chaillet additionally created his own comic for Tintin, the historical series about young banker 'Vasco' in 14th century Italy. Lombard collected the series in 23 books between 1983 and 2009. In 2000, Chaillet participated in the artwork for the first book in Didier Convard's series 'Le Triangle Secret'. He cooperated with Convard again in the historical diptych 'Vinci', publihsed by Glénat in 2008 and 2009. In 2002 he inaugurated the La Loge Noire collection of the publishing house Glénat with his series 'La Dernière Prophétie'.

In the 2000s, he also turned to scriptwriting for others, and created the series 'Tombelaine' with Bernard Capo (Casterman, 2001-2006), the detective thriller 'Intox' with Olivier Mangin (Glénat, 2003-2008), 'Diocletien' with Christophe Ansar (Cognito, 2011) and 'Les Boucliers de Mars' with Gine (Glénat, 2011). Furthermore, he made an extensive atlas with detailed maps and drawings about ancient Rome for Glénat in 2004, called 'Dans la Rome des Césars'. Gilles Chaillet passed away in Margency in September 2011.