Jean Van Hamme

Jean Van Hamme is one of Europe's best comic writers. With such legendary and highly successful titles as 'XIII', 'Largo Winch' and 'Thorgal' to his name, he qualifies as a master in the comics field. A career in writing wasn't his initial focus however. After obtaining his degree in political economy, he took on a long career in the marketing field. At the same time, he wrote his first comic stories, starting with the erotic and mythological 'Epoxy' for Maurice Cuvelier in 1968. Also for Cuvelier, Van Hamme wrote some episodes of the 'Corentin' series. He was also involved with the adaptation of this series to animation shorts by the Belvision studios. After doing some 'Magellan' stories for Géri in 1969 and 1970, Van Hamme began writing for Tintin magazine on a regular base.

It wasn't until 1976 that Van Hamme cancelled his marketing activities and focused solely on writing. His main writing activities of the 1970s include 'Domino' for André Chéret (written at first by Greg), the aviation series 'Michael Logan' for André Beautemps and several 'Histoires sans Héros' for Dany. Van Hamme continued his cooperation in 1978 with the 'Arlequin' series. With the creation of 'Thorgal' in 1977, Van Hamme had his first big hit. Illustrated by Grzegorz Rosinski, 'Thorgal' wasn't a regular historical comic about a group of vikings. Playing with fantastic elements, the series is more a heroic fantasy.

Another highlight of Van Hamme's career was begun in 1984, 'XIII', illustrated by William Vance. With the main theme based on Robert Ludlum's book 'The Bourne Identity', the series is built around a character in search of his true identity. What follows is a series of exciting intrigues, government and military cover-ups, murder attempts and action scenes. At the same time, he produced the political-fiction series 'S.O.S. Bonheur' for Griffo at Dupuis publishers. Jean Van Hamme began adapting his 'Largo Winch' novels into comic strips, which resulted in yet another successful comic series, illustrated by Philippe Francq. The success led to a television series in the 2000s, with real actors. In 1992, Van Hamme began 'Les Maîtres de l'Orge' with Francis Vallès, about a dynasty of Belgian brewers. In 1996, he worked with Ted Benoit on a new story of Edgar P. Jacobs' 'Blake et Mortimer'.