Yann Balac'h was born and raised in Brittany, developing a particular passion for Breton culture and traditions over his school years, and spent much of his spare time playing the Breton pipe and practicing Breton wrestling. At the age of 23, he had an epiphany while visiting the Saint Tugdual church at Concarneau: he decided to become a craftsman of stained-glass windows. He got his qualifications and tried to make a living from his art.
But job openings were few and far between! So he did a master's degree on 'Mab Kagn, ' the kelp gatherers in the Trépassés Bay at Pointe du Raz in the 17th century, but he sadly never found a publisher for his thesis.
That's when he discovered comic books at the Saint-Mayeux festival, thanks to Fournier's album "L'Ankou." So he launched himself into his very first comic book creation: "Les exploits de la patrouille des Macareux, " which was unfortunately turned down by the newspaper Ouest-France, but was eventually published in an obscure Belgian weekly...
named 'Spirou.' That's where he met the artist Hislaire, with whom he started working on "Sambre, " which was initially set in Brittany... until Hislaire decided he'd prefer it to be in the South of France. Disappointed by this 'betrayal, ' Yann abandoned comic books and started competing in Breton wrestling tournaments, and soon found considerable success. Unfortunately, following a dodgy leg-lock, he had to give it all up!
Disillusioned with the Celtic world in general, he made his way over to the US, where he found a new passion for 'nose art' techniques (the decoration of airplane cockpits) by the side of ex-US Air Force pilots.
But there aren't so many job openings in that either.
After a rather dark (and derelict) time in his life, he somehow got embroiled in borderline legal diamond trafficking, between Anvers, Las Vegas and Rabat Gan in Israel. He learnt to distinguish a Tsavorite from a Boart in just a glance, and to spot the tiniest imperfection in any gem.
When the police get wind of his activities, he had no choice but to flee to Australia where he got into seeking and exporting meteorites...
but the competition was pretty stiff! The years went by, and he became increasingly bitter towards the sense of his own failure. At the Saint-Malo festival of "Surprising Travelers, " as he was signing his autobiography, he met artist Joel Parnotte, who was doing a signing of his own work "Les Aquanautes." The two of them hit it off, and decided to create the "Sang des Porphyre" saga, based on a true story about the Rotheneuf family, bloodthirsty pirates who terrorized the coast of Saint-Malo in the 18th century.
He later partnered up with André Juillard for "Mezek" (Le Lombard 2011, Europe Comics 2016), a fast-moving drama about mercenary fighters at the dawn of the Israeli state.
And later that year, he published the tenth volume in the striking historical fiction series "Pin-Up" (Dargaud 1994, Europe Comics 2017), alongside artist Philippe Berthet. Also in 2011, Yann contributed his writing talents to the legendary series "Thorgal, " giving rise to the sub-series "Louve" and, a few years later, "Thorgal - The Early Years" (Le Lombard; Europe Comics in English), in tandem with artist Roman Surzhenko.
Fascinated by these artists' superb images, Yann has now fully returned to his early passions, weighing anchor once and for all in the magical world of comics!
Born in Toulouse, France in 1972, Frédéric Vignaux divided his student life between Toulouse, Montpellier and Lille, where he pursued scientific studies, until the day when the comic book virus (which had already been chasing him for a long time!) caught up with him.
He naturally migrated to Paris, where he spent time in comic book workshops before finally joining a graphic design school. Along the way, he met Eric Pailharey during a life-size role-playing game, and suggested that he try scriptwriting. After a few short stories for contests and fanzines allowing them to improve their collaboration, they won a first prize at the Igny Comics Festival. Then, they quickly followed up with a full story, "L'Ombre des Anciens." The first part of this project, initially planned in three volumes, was published by Pointe Noire in June 2002.
Unfortunately, following the bankruptcy of the publishing house, the trilogy couldn't go on. A few commercial comics projects later (including "Cassini-Huygens: Objectif Titan" for the European Space Agency), he completed the "Time Twins" project with Jean-Christophe Derrien at Le Lombard. He also illustrated the two volumes of the series "L'Appel des légendes" at Drugstore and "Le Pendule de Foucault" with Didier Convard and Éric Adam.
In 2014, he contributed to Glénat's collection called "Ils ont fait l'Histoire" by illustrating volume two, "Vercingétorix." Starting in 2015, he began work on "Neige origine" with Didier Convard and Eric Adam, the prequel to the "Neige" series. And in 2017, he joined the "Thorgal" universe, illustrating volume seven of "Kriss de Valnor." He followed this in 2019 with "L'Hermite de Skellingar" from the main "Thorgal" series (Le Lombard; Cinebook/Europe Comics in English).
