'Nathalie'.
Sergio Salma was born in Charleroi in 1960 as the son of Italian parents. After an artistic education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Mons, he made his first album for Michel Deligne: 'Faits Divers' with a script by Francesco Pittau in 1983. Then, he created the 'Marcobello' series in À Suivre and worked for several magazines for children. For Spirou, he scripted such series as 'Isaline et Jean-Luc' (art by Alec Séverin), 'Suzy' (art by Carine De Brab), 'Attention École' (art by Curd Ridel) and 'Petit Rigolo Illustré' (art by several artists, including Salma himself).
'Faits Divers'.
In 1989, Salma created his best-known character, the highly imaginative little girl and wanna-be world traveller 'Nathalie', in Tintin Reporter. Éditions Casterman has collected 'Nathalie' in 20 books since 1992, and the comic also ran in Minnie magazine. As a scriptwriter, Salma developed a second heroine, the rich and spoilt 'Mademoiselle Louise', in cooperation with André Geerts. Casterman published two books in 1993 and 1997, and Dupuis two more in 2007 and 2009. Salma also helped with the creation of the final 'Jojo' album, released shortly after Geerts' death in 2010.
'Surimi'.
While continuing to write and draw 'Nathalie', Salma created 'Surimi', a humorous series about a crab on a tourist beach, also for Casterman (2001-2003). He additionally created 'Ice Fred' for the Disney Hachette magazine P'tit Loup in 2002, and the vertical gag strip 'Animal Lecteur' with Libon for Spirou in 2006. Salma is also known as a committed artist through his commissioned anti-discrimination comic book called 'Moi, raciste?' for the European Union in 1998, and his participation in the comic about seropositive children and adolescents for Dupuis.
'Nathalie'.
In 2007 Salma wrote the 43rd and final comic book in the series 'Les 4 As' with artist Alain Maury. He also scripted an album with gags about the US-Iraq conflict called 'Bagdad KO' with art by Marco Paulo (Drugstore, 2009). 'Marinelle 1956', Salma's comic about the Le Bois du Cazier mining disaster in Marcinelle took him 25 years to create, and was finally published in the collection Casterman Écritures in 2012.
'Marcinelle 1956'.