Jan Bosschaert, illustration originale, Sam au bistrot.

Jan Bosschaert was born in Borgerhout in Flanders in 1957. He was raised in Wijnegem, close to the forest, in a house with a large garden. He spend most of his free time drawing. He made his first comic when he was about 10, and continued in the next years with comics in different genres, ranging from Sherlock Holmes stories to his own version of Lucky Luke. One of his comics, about two senior scouts, he shows to established comics creator Eddy Ryssack, whose main advice is to make sure everything is well documented. He also loved the work of André Franquin which he discovered at the age of 14 at a comics fair in Brussels. His puberty was a rather unhappy period, where Bosschaert withdrew into his own world and into music. He listened to artists like Tom Waits or Jackson Browne, but kept on drawing. When he was 18 years old, he visited comics author Pom. Seeing the poverty the author lives in is quite a shock, but it didn't stop him of becoming an artist himself.