Roger Melliès started his career as an illustrator in the early 1920s. He started out making aircraft drawings for an American factory, located in Paris. He then became the longtime illustrator of catalogues for the Lafayette department stores, and for the magazine L'Auto. After working several years as a commercial artist, Melliès created his first aviation comic, 'Pilotes des Sables', published in Pierrot in 1939.
This was followed by the scouting story 'La Patrouille des Écureuils' and several contributions to magazines like Lisette, Fillette and L'Épatant. He additionally produced three albums with 'Les Aventures de Bill Bock et Kay Cherceurs d'Or' for Touret et Enfants de France. He was a prisoner during World War II, and he reassumed his comic activities in 1944.
Biggles comic, by Roger Mellies
He returned to the field with several series, mostly aviation comics, like 'Aéroport Z', 'Jérôme Gaillard', 'Pancho Villa', 'Les Aventuriers en Image'. Roger Malliès became one of the main artists of Artima publishers, with series like 'Escale 7', 'Le Fantôme Blue du Hoggar', 'Polyte, Détective Amateur', 'Tony Cyclone', 'Tex Bill' and 'Luc Hardy'. Roger Melliès was also one of the first artists to illustrate a series of comic adaptations of Captain John's 'Biggles' books (1963-1968). These novels have been adapted into comic strips by other artists too, like Pim van Boxsel, Albert De Vine, Rob Embleton, Ola Ericson, Gote Goransson, Guicha, Maurice Rondepierre, Alfred Sindall, Willy Vandersteen and Mike Western,
