Christian Rossi was born in St. Denis, where he developed a passion for comics together with his neighbor, the future comic writer Marc Malès. He studied Photography and Visual Expression at the École Estienne in Paris, while learning the comics profession from Jijé and publishing his first comic pages in Formule 1 in 1973. He went to work as a storyboard artist for advertisements after fulfilling his military service. He returned to comics after meeting Didier Convard, who introduced him to the owners of the publishing house Twin Cam in 1977.
He drew for the publisher's short-lived magazines like Plein Pot, before finding a more steady home with the publishing house Fleurus in 1980. He published the comic story 'Les Aventures de Claire' with Jean-Marie Pélaprat in Djinn, while making the illustrations for 'Valvidia le Conquistador' by Genevrier and Pons in Historiques. Publications by Glénat and Dargaud followed, such as the 'Freddy Joubert' series with Henri Filippini in Circus, and 'Le Maraudeur' with text by Jean Sanitas for Le Journal de Capitaine Fulgur. He also made his first westerns for Circus, creating the series 'Le Chariot de Thespis' with Philippe Bonifay in the early 1980s.
He also published in Gomme, and worked as a press illustrator for Le Nouvel Observateur, Okapi, Le Point, L'Echo des Savanes, Je Bouquine and France Soir. Rossi teamed up with Serge Le Tendre in 1985 to create 'Julius Antoine' in L'Écho des Savanes and 'Edmond et Crustave' for the publisher Futuropolis. 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 third volume, 'Ces Gens-là' (1988) featured a contribution by Rossi. He got the opportunity to work with Jean Giraud when he was asked to draw new stories with 'Jim Cutlass' in the 1990s.
Julius Antoine
He teamed up with Makyo for the fantasy saga 'Le Cycle des deux horizons' for Delcourt between 1990 and 1993. He also worked on new projects with Le Tendre, such as 'La Gloire d'Hera' in À Suivre and the historical story 'Tirésias' for Casterman in 2001. He drew the more adult comic 'Caïman' with scripts by Enrique Abuli for Albin Michel. Between 2003 and 2011, he made the series 'W.E.S.T.' with scriptwriters Xavier Dorison and Fabien Nury at Dargaud. His next project was 'Paulette Comète', a tribute to Will Eisner's 'The Spirit', written by Mathieu Sapin and published by Dargaud since 2010. In 2013 he added another western to his oeuvre, the one-shot 'Deadline', that was made in cooperation with Laurent-Frédéric Bollée.
He was also a member of Philippe Bonifay's Studio Jotim, which produced the comic book adaptation of Georges-Jean Arnaud's post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel series 'La Compagnie des Glaces' ('The Ice Company'), published in fifteen books at Dargaud between 2003 and 2009. Rossi was responsible for the roughs, while the other members were Bonifay (scripts), Ann Boinet (documentation), Thierry Maurel (technical backgrounds), Juliette Derenne (backgrounds), Jérôme Lereculey (main characters and trains), Loïc Malnati (art), André Le Braz (secondary characters), Séraphine, Dominique Lidwine (covers), Jacques Terpant (additional art), Arnaud Quéré (trains), Pascale Sorin (editing), Siel and Etsumi Sato-Gabrion (coloring).
Although Christian Rossi was strongly inspired by Giraud and Jijé early in his career, he has eventually developed a personal style. He is specialized in drawing westerns and historical comics, that are often filled with occult elements.
La Gloire d'Hera