Le chanteur sans nom (2011)
Born in Besançon, Olivier Balez studied Applied Arts at the École Estienne in Paris between 1990 and 1995. He completed his education at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland, before travelling to Barcelona and Sydney. Upon his return to Paris, he set up the comics atelier Les Dents de la Poule with a couple of other artists.
He made a comic based on one of Jean-Bernard Pouy's 'Le Poulpe' detective novels, called 'Satanique ta mère', for Libération in 1997. In the following year, he created his own 'Poulpe' story, 'L'Opus à l'oreille', which was published by Baleine during the Angoulême comic festival. Balez has made designs for hardboiled fiction novels, including the Librio Noir collection and novels by Francis Mizio, Thierry Jonquet and Dominique Manotti.
Le Cycle du Nautile #2
He teamed up with Éric Corbeyran in 2001. They cooperated on a story for the Declourt anthology 'Paroles de taule' and on two books for Dargaud, 'Le village qui s'amenuise' (2004) and 'Charmes fous' (2005).
While staying in Australia for a couple of months, he did a project with journalist Florence Bécamp for the Academy of Visual Arts. Balez and Bécamp also made the comics trilogy 'Le Cycle du Nautile' together for Bayard in 2005-2006.
Rémi
Balez continued to publish travel journals and children's books like 'La Complainte de Mandrin' (2005), his series 'Rémi' for Milan and his Charlot adaptations, before returning to the detective genre with 'Angle Mort' with Pascale Fonteneau in 2007. He has worked with Arnaud Le Gouëfflec on the Glénat books 'Topless' (2009), 'Le Chanteur sans nom' (2011) and 'J'aurai ta peau Dominique A' (2013), and with Pierre Christin on 'Sous le ciel d'Atacama' (Casterman, 2010) and the graphic novel about New York's master builder Robert Moses (Glénat, 2013). He wrote the script for 'La cordée du mont rose' (Les Arènes XXI, 2011) himself. Olivier Balez lives and works in Chile.
La Cordée du Mont Rose (2011)