Born in France in 1959, Philippe Bonifay chose two professional routes for himself: social work and show business. He began training as an actor at the age of 14 and earned a children's camp instructor certificate at 17. Comics only came to him some time later as a pleasant distraction. His real comics work began in 1980-81, while he was in the army. A few years prior, he had met the author Christian Rossi, and found that they had a common interest in westerns.
Together, they ended up collaborating on the series "Chariot de Thespis" for Glénat. This led to future projects with the same publisher, and subsequently other publishers, including Dargaud ("Messara") and Dupuis. His work for the latter includes the landmark "Zoo, " alongside Frank Pé, and, more recently, "Gitans des mers" ("Gypsies of the High Seas, " Europe Comics), together with Stéphane Duval.
Stéphane Duval was born in 1970 in Rennes (France).
Very early on, reading the "Tintin" series made him want to go into comic books himself. This desire was quickly reinforced by the discovery of American comics, with authors such as Gene Colan, John Buscema, and Frank Miller. At the same time, he became fascinated by the works of Tardi, Muñoz, Sampayo, Bourgeon, and others through the magazine "À suivre." At the end of the 1980s, he participated in the Rennes fanzine "Atchoum, " which gave him the opportunity to work in a studio with various authors, and his meeting with scriptwriter Pierre Dubois in 1990 led to a first full-length volume, "Bonnie Tom, " published in 1992 by Delcourt.
Six books followed for the duo with the same publisher, then Duval moved on to collaborate with other writers like Dieter and Pascal Bertho. One of his projects with Bertho, about the viking heroine "Aëla, " led them to publisher Dupuis, and it was with them that Duval created the swashbuckling "Gitans des mers" ("Gypsies of the High Seas, " Europe Comics) in 2010, alongside Philippe Bonifay.
