Sisco #6 - 'Négociations en 9 mm' (2013).
Thomas Legrain is a Belgian comic artist whose background in History and Criminology seeps through in his comic projects. He notably worked on politically oriented comic thrillers like 'Mortelle Riviera' (2006-2008) and 'Sisco' (2010-2021), while series like 'L'Agence' (2006-2009) and 'The Regiment' (2017- ) explore war history.
Early life
Thomas Legrain was born in 1981 in Belgium. His paternal grandmother Louise was the sister of Joseph Gillain (1914-1980), the legendary Belgian comic pioneer known as Jijé. Joining in with his family's cultural legacy, Legrain himself showed an early talent for drawing too. During the early stages of his artistic development, Legrain already found inspiration in the realism and meticulous backgrounds of Travis Charest and the thriller comics written by Jean Van Hamme. For his career path, he initially chose a different direction, studying History and Criminology. As a comic artist, he is largely self-taught, creating comic pages in his spare time.
Bartoll collaborations
After his formal education, Legrain promoted his comic art through the BDparadisio.com website. Within two months time, this got him in touch with the scriptwriters Jean-Claude and Agnes Bartoll, who asked him to work with them on no less than two different comic projects. 'Mortelle Riviera' (2006-2008) was a political-financial crime trilogy published by Glénat, about a female lawyer who decides to run against her corrupt father in the municipal elections of a town along the Riviera, and gets caught up in a web of crime and deceit. Legrain's other project with the Bartolls was 'L'Agence' (2006-2009), a series about a secret organization fighting against the trafficking of historical art treasures. Published by Casterman, Legrain drew the first four installments. The last two stories, from 2011 and 2013, were drawn by Bernard Khattou, AKA Frisco.
Sisco #7 - 'La Loi de Murphy' (2014).
Sisco
Through the BDparadisio message board, Legrain got in touch with another scriptwriter, who operates under the pen name Benec. With his work for the Bartoll series finished, Legrain and Benec teamed up to create a new series for publisher Le Lombard. The result was the crime thriller 'Sisco', about a non-scrupulous secret agent/hitman in service of the French government. Arrogant, cold and cynical, Vincent Sisco-Castiglioni is tasked with protecting the President, which brings him behind the scenes of the powers and scandals of the political world. Initially intended as a diptych, the detestable hero would have died at the end of the second volume. However, the series proved to be a critical success, and the authors made ten more episodes until concluding the project with the 2021 installment 'Roulette Russe'. Critically praised for its photo-realistic artwork, the 11th installment, 'Belgian Rhapsody', was awarded the 2020 Prix Atomium in Brussels. In 2017, the Europe Comics imprint began releasing the series in English.
Other comics
In between 'Sisco' episodes, Thomas Legrain teamed up with scriptwriter Stephen Desberg to create 'Bagdad Inc.' (Lombard, 2015), a techno-thriller based in war-torn Iraq. Since 2017, Legrain has been working with writer Vincent Brugeas on 'The Regiment', another Lombard series telling the story of the legendary SAS unit operating in North Africa during World War II. Both projects were released in English by Europe Comics as well.
'The Regiment - L'Histoire vraie du SAS', vol. 1 (2017).