Jean-Claude Mézières

While still attending a Paris art school, Jean-Claude Mézières already collaborated with a large amount of magazines, including Bonjour Philippine, Fripounet et Marisette, Coeurs Vaillants and Spirou. In 1961 he joined Studio Hachette, where worked as a lay-out man, before becoming an illustrator for among others for 'L'Histoire des Civilisations' together with Jean Giraud. Mézières then joined an advertising company and moved to the States, but returned after a reunion with his childhood friend Pierre Christin.

Christin wrote a scenario for him, which appeared in 1966 in Pilote. Mézières continued working for Pilote in the following years, illustrating short stories with scripts by Christin (Linus), Fred, Reiser, Lob and Goscinny, as well as the continuing story 'L'Extraordinaire et Troublante Aventure de M. Auguste Faust' (script by Fred).

In 1967 Mézières and Christin started the series 'Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent', which became a classic in the French science-fiction genre. From then on, Mézières has worked nearly exclusively on his trademark series, which was published in a series of albums by Dargaud since 1970. In the late 1980s Mézières started experimenting with direct colors, resulting in some short stories for Métal Hurlant.

In addition to 'Valérian', Mézières and Christin have produced one-shots like 'Lady Polaris' (Autrement, 1987) and 'Canal Choc' (Les Humanoïdes Associés, 1990). For the latter, Mézières was mainly supervisor; the art was done by his pupils Hugues Labiano, Philippe Aymond and Philippe Chapelle. He has also taught courses on the production of comics at the University of Paris, Vincennes.