XIII - Retour à Greenfalls
Moscow-born comic artist Iouri (Youri) Jigounov got his interest in comics through Tintin magazine from Belgium. He studied at the Academy of Civil Aviation in Moscow for a period of two years, and then fulfilled his military service. He published his first short comic stories through the Moscow-based studio Kom in 1989. Because of the limited possibilities for publication in Russia, Jigounov presented his work for West-European publishers. He made a comic called 'Les Lettres de Krivtsov', which he translated to the French language himself with the aid of a dictionary.
Les Lettres de Krivtsov
In 1994, he headed for Brussels, Belgium, and sold his story to the publishing house Le Lombard. Edited by Paul Renard, the album was published in 1995. Jigounov continued his collaboration with Renard to start the espionage series 'Alpha' in the following year. The artist left Russia for good and settled in Belgium in 1997.
Alpha
Following Renard's death in 1997, Jigounov continued 'Alpha' with Mythic, but took over the scriptwork himself in 2009. He handed over the artwork of the series to Chris Lamquet in 2011, when he got the opportunity to succeed William Vance and Jean Van Hamme on 'XIII' together with scriptwriter Yves Sente.
XIII - Operation Mayflower