Jean-Claude Mézières

Jean-Claude Mézières is a French comic strip artist born in Paris September 23, 1938. Longtime illustrator of the popular cartoon series Valérian, agent spatio-temporel, he was awarded the prestigious European comics prize, Grand prix de la ville d'Angoulême (Alpha-art) in 1984.

Biography

During WWII he met his neighbor and future collaborator Pierre Christin in an air-raid shelter. Mézières entered the Institute des Arts Appliqués in 1953. While still a student he drew stories for French comics magazines including Coeurs Vaillant and Spirou. Following a term of military service he became a commercial artist, but travelled to the United States in 1965 to work as a cowboy in Montana and Arizona. Unable to pay his way back to France, Mézières contacted old friend Christin, then teaching in Utah. The pair's first collaboration, Le Rhum du Punch, was published in Pilote magazine in 1966 and paid his way home.

The following year the pair created the science-fiction series Valérian, agent spatio-temporel for Pilote. More than 20 episodes in the ongoing adventure series have been published to date.