Born in 1965 in Belgium, Bernard Vrancken quickly revealed himself as a talented artist. At 15, he was honoured in a competition organised by the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which gave him the opportunity to meet some of the European comic-book industry's big guns, such as Franquin and Yvan Delporte. At just 16, he had already published several great historical epics in Tintin magazine. A regular workaholic, he was constantly drawing, erasing, sketching, improving, starting over and learning.
Then it was a chance meeting with Stephen Desberg, who quickly became his favourite writer.
Together they created 10 short stories for A suivre... magazine, followed by a romantic saga called Le Sang Noir (Lombard), before eventually creating etamp;ldquo;I. R.$.etamp;rdquo; for Lombard's Troisième Vague collection.
Stephen Desberg was born in Brussels on 10 September 1954 and started writing scripts under the guidance of Maurice Tillieux. He collaborated on Tillieux's last etamp;ldquo;Tif et Tonduetamp;rdquo; stories (etamp;ldquo;Le Gouffre interditetamp;rdquo; in 1978, then etamp;ldquo;Les Passe-montagnesetamp;rdquo;) and then wrote the series on his own until the departure of Willy Maltaite (Will) in 1990.
Desberg produced other stories for Will and for his son, Eric, with whom he successively developed a number of series before turning to a more adult type of humour in etamp;ldquo;Carmen Lamouretamp;rdquo; at Petamp;T Productions in 1993. After this initial period, he worked for Spirou and devised the etamp;ldquo;Mic Mac Adametamp;rdquo; series for Benn from 1978 onwards, a first attempt at etamp;ldquo;Billy the Catetamp;rdquo; with Colman in 1979, the fantastic adventures of the angel etamp;ldquo;Arkeletamp;rdquo; for Marc Hardy in 1981 and the retro African atmosphere of etamp;ldquo;Jimmy Tousseletamp;rdquo; for Daniel Desorgher in 1987.
At Casterman, he worked in association with Johan De Moor to devise the characters of etamp;ldquo;Gaspard de la nuitetamp;rdquo; and etamp;ldquo;La Vache.etamp;rdquo; At Lombard, he wrote etamp;ldquo;Le Sang noiretamp;rdquo; for Bernard Vrancken. Dargaud published his etamp;ldquo;Étoile du désert, etamp;rdquo; a saga illustrated by Enrico Marini. Amongst his more recent creations, etamp;ldquo;Le Cercle des sentinellesetamp;rdquo; with Philippe Wurm at Casterman is worth mentioning.
However, it is with the kitten etamp;ldquo;Billy the Catetamp;rdquo; that he has experienced his greatest success after deciding to revive the eight-year-old rough draft in 1987. These new adventures led to a remarkable series of albums, exactingly produced by a perfectionist cartoonist. They would also attract the attention of millions of European television viewers in a parallel series of animated cartoons.
