Marc Hernu was born in Kinshasa, Belgian Congo. As a member of Claude Renard's Atelier R, Marc Hernu's first work was published in Le Neuvième Rêve. In 1982 he made 'Clear Love lave plus Blanc' for Deligne publishers. That same year, he began a longtime cooperation with the scenarist Jan Bucquoy. They started out with 'Retour au Pays Noir', which was soon followed by the creation of the character Alain Moreau. After four albums of 'Alain Moreau', published by Rijperman and Ansaldi, Hernu and Bucquoy explored the humorous field and created 'Jean-Pierre Lheureux' in Circus in 1985. For that same magazine, Hernu started the 'Destin de Sarah' series, doing both artwork and scriptwork. Hernu made 'Destin de Sarah' until 1991, and then focused on advertising art, design and photography.
In 1987-1988 the publishing company Brain Factory International released a four-volume comic book series where Franco-Belgian comic authors visualized several songs by singer Jacques Brel in comic strip form. The second volume, 'Les Prénoms' (1987) featured a contribution by Hernu.