Self-taught artist Jean-Christophe Menu is considered one of the key figures in the independent comic mouvement. He started his careers as a comic artist and as a publisher at the same time, when he launched fanzines like Le Lynx à Tifs and Le Journal de Lapot in 1981. In 1984 he started working for Psikopat, where he introduced the character Meder. Soon, his work can be found in magazines such as Tintin Reporter, Spirou, Fripounet, Jade, Rip-Off and Weirdo. For Futuropolis publishers he created books such as 'Le Portrait de Lurie Ginol' and 'Labo', a collective experiment.
In 1990, together with six other comic authors, Menu launched L'Association publishers. Under this label, he created books like 'Moins d'un Quart de Seconde pour Vivre' (with Lewis Trondheim, 1991), 'Dinozor Apokalips' (1991), 'Omelette' (1995), 'Grognottes' (1998) and 'Le Livre du Mont-Vérité' (2002). He also started 'Livret de Phamille', an autobiographical comic, that appeared in L'Association's magazine Lapin.
In 1992 Jean-Christophe Menu founded the OuBaPo (Ouvroir de Bandes Dessinées Potentielles). Afterwards, Menu created 'Mune comix' at Cornélius publishers, as well as 'Retour de Dieu' and 'Noire et la Terre', two issues in the Histoires Graphiques collection at Autrement publiblishers.
In 2001, Menu began his own label, J. C. Menu, and in the following year, he made 'Vert Thépamur' for Automne 67. A second episode, called 'Les Nouvelles Aventures de Vert Thépamur' was published in Lapin. Menu is furthermore the illustrator of the second album in the series 'Donjon Monstres' by Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar at Delcourt, as well as a critic in Les Cahier de la Bande Dessinée and Le 9e Art. In 2004, he published 'Munographie' in the collection Étoiles d'Image' at Editions de l'An 2 and 'Les 16 Boules de Cristal' under his own label.
Livret de Phamille, by Jean-Christophe Menu