Olivier Vatine

Few comic art creators have shaped the publishing landscape as much as they have drawn: as an artist, writer, colorist, and publisher, Olivier Vatine has built both science fiction worlds and the structures that publish them. 

Born on April 29, 1959, in Le Havre, he met screenwriter Thierry Cailleteau while attending high school in Rouen, and the two began a pivotal collaboration in 1984. After gaining recognition in Pilote magazine with Fred and Bob, and later in Fluide Glacial with Stan Pulsar, the duo joined the fledgling Delcourt publishing house in 1988 to launch Aquablue, a humanistic science fiction story that immediately became one of the genre’s major French series. 

While continuing Aquablue until 1998, Vatine branched out into various fields—advertising, animation set design, and film storyboarding—before returning to comic art as a writer with Adios Palomita, as an artist on the Star Wars adaptation for Dark Horse Comics, and on the Western Angela, or performing both roles simultaneously. From 1995 to 2007, he co-directed the successful Série B imprint at Delcourt with Fred Blanchard, which published a dozen series and sold approximately two million copies. 

In late 2007, he founded his own publishing house, Comix Buro, where he wrote and illustrated the Niourk trilogy—an adaptation of Stefan Wul’s cult novel—as a complete creator. Now a fully-fledged publishing house in partnership with Glénat, Comix Buro subsequently launched ambitious projects such as Infinity 8, conceived with Lewis Trondheim—proof, if any were needed, that Vatine has never stopped fostering a dialogue between creation and publishing. The Daniel Maghen Gallery dedicated an exhibition to him in 2020.