Dan

Dan Verlinden discovered Le Journal de Spirou and Le Journal de Tintin at his grandfather’s house. As a child, he devoured these magazines and was fascinated, amongst other things, by the charisma of Monsieur Choc, a character born of the imagination of Will & Rosy. Encouraged by his parents, Dan chose the art stream at school, then enrolled on comic art courses at the Académie de Châtelet. Vittorio Léonardo, who ran these weekend courses, introduced him to the leading authors at Éditions Dupuis, his favourite publishing house. 

At the age of sixteen, during Up Chic meetings, he met Roba, Franquin, Peyo, Will, Morris, and others. The following year, he took his first professional steps by creating a tribute page to mark the twentieth anniversary of Natacha. Barely of age, he was certain of one thing: he would make comic art his career. Initially, he divided his time between music and drawing before joining Dupuis as a letterer and proofreader, which enabled him to work on all the original artwork by the authors in the catalogue. He then undertook editorial work for Le Journal de Spirou. Thierry Tinlot, his editor-in-chief, introduced him to Tome & Janry. Dan was immediately charmed by the studio the duo shared with Stuf and Bruno Gazzotti. He became Janry’s assistant on Le Petit Spirou, before working on Luna Fatale, the 45th Spirou & Fantasio album. He remained alongside Janry until the tenth Le Petit Spirou album, before embarking on Rages, an animal-themed science fiction project with Tome that would never see the light of day at Dargaud. Dan then returned to being Janry’s right-hand man, before being offered the chance to take over the artwork for Soda. In 2014, Résurrection marked his entry into the most popular series in the history of Le Journal de Spirou.