Les Voyages d'Alix - 'Pompéï'.
Marc Henniquiau - who signed with "Kio" early in his career - was a Belgian comic artist, best known as one of Jacques Martin's co-workers.
Early life
Marc Henniquiau was born in 1960 (other sources say 1958) in the Belgian town of Boussu, in the province of Hainaut. Even though he had been drawing since his early childhood, he initially opted for a career in electronics. After his scientific humanities in Saint-Ghislain, he took evening classes in this field at the Aumôniers du Travail College in Charleroi. However, after being hired at the Tour du Midi in Brussels, he dropped out of his studies. After two years, Henniquiau found himself in a transitional period, without a job, nor a career plan.
Early comic career
Henniquiau became an assistant of the comic artist Clovis (Claude Viseur), whom he helped with the artwork and coloring of his commercial art assignments. One of their notable projects was the comic book 'Fric-Frac à Francorchamps' (1988) on commission from Toyota. At age 26, Henniquiau's actual career in comics took off, with the help of the comic artist Franz Drappier. Between 1985 and 1990, he drew several short historical stories for Tintin magazine, mostly from scripts by Yves Duval. He signed these early works with the pen name "Kio".
Studio Martin
In the 1990s, Henniquiau became an assistant for the Franco-Belgian comics veteran Jacques Martin. Between 1996 and 2005, he assisted Rafael Morales on the artwork of five albums of Martin's signature series 'Alix'. For the educational spin-off series 'Les Voyages d'Alix', Henniquiau illustrated two volumes about ancient shipping (1997, 1999) and one about the city of Pompei (2002). He also participated in the character artwork for the installments about ancient Rome and ancient Greece. A planned second volume about Pompei was never released due to the early death of Marc Henniquiau in 2010. Coincidentally, Henniquiau passed away almost twelve months after 'Alix' creator Jacques Martin died, still within the same year.
'Le Talisman' (Super Tintin #30, 1985).