Les Poulets de Kentucky
Belgian comic author and press artist Olivier Saive was born in Rocourt and enrolled in the École Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc in Liège, but only stayed there for one week. He got aquainted with comic artists Fabrizio Borrini, Eric Maltaite and Stéphane Colman and assisted the latter on the coloring of his 1982 comic book 'White le Choc'.
La Ligne Universelle
Saive created his first album, 'Virage', in the Atomium collection of the publishing house Magic Strip in 1984. He then fulfilled his military service, and returned to the profession with his 1987 album 'La Ligne Universelle', published by Éditions du Miroir. Around this time, he also cooperated on several advertising and infographic projects, as well as TV leaders.
Tatayet
By 1989, he made a comics version of the television puppet 'Tatayet' in cooperation with ventriloquist Michel Dejeneffe and scriptwriter Raoul Cauvin. Two albums were published by Marsu Productions in 1990 and 1991. In 1992, he revived the classic Raymond Macherot character 'Chaminou' for the same publishing house and made three albums until 1995, the final two from scripts by his brother Bruno. When 'Chaminou' ended, Saive turned to illustration work for Le Soir, Athena and Imediaire and commercial assignments. In 1998 he published the black-and-white comic booklet 'Saive qui peut!' with publisher Point Image.
Chaminou
He then did two short-lived humorous series for Casterman in the early 2000s, 'Les Jeux sont faits' (with Dugomier) and 'Maman et moi' (with Marylène Bruno). Saive became the artist of the Bamboo series 'Foot Maniacs' from the fourth album in 2006 and continues to draw this humorous soccer comic from scripts by Béka to this day. Saive has also did the artwork for two books in the series 'Fondus', also published by Bamboo.
Foot Maniacs
Saive had been present in magazine Spirou since the early 1990s with editorial illustrations and short stories, but also with short-lived series like 'Les Maitres du Monde' (text by Janssens) and 'Michou Gropou' (text by Zidrou). But his best known series for the magazine became 'Les Poulets de Kentucky', that he started with 'Fondus' co-writer Hervé Richez in 2009. Album collections were published by Dupuis. For Bamboo, he additionally drew two books containing adaptations of sketches by French comedian Olivier de Benoist, in 2012 and 2013.
In addition to his activities as an artist, Saive teamed up with Flemish artist Luc Cromheecke in 2001 to start CartoonBase, a company that serves as a syndication channel for various European artists.
Les Maitres du Monde