JEAN VAN HAMME

According to Wikipedia: "Jean Van Hamme (born 16 January 1939) is a Belgian novelist and comic book writer. He has written scripts for a number of Belgian/French comic series, including Histoire sans héros, Thorgal, XIII and Largo Winch.

After studying business administration at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, he worked as a journalist and in the marketing department of Philips. In the meantime, he started writing, and one of his first scripts was adapted by Paul Cuvelier in 1968. This erotic comic named Epoxy was published by the controversial publisher Éric Losfeld. In 1976, Van Hamme became a full-time writer, and in the next few years he published seven novels and some movie scripts, e.g. for Diva.

Van Hamme's main breakthrough came in 1977, when he created the Viking hero Thorgal for Grzegorz Rosi?ski, a relatively unknown Polish comic artist. The mix of medieval legends and heroic fantasy soon became a huge success in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Tintin. The duo won major awards in the French and Belgian comic book industry."