Namibia, Kathy Austin

Bertrand Marchal was born in Verviers, and attended the Graphic Research School in Brussels. He took courses in comic art from Alain Goffin, Gérard Goffaux and Olivier Grenson. He contributed a story to an anthology in 1994 and created the mini comic 'La Reine' with his brother in 1995. He began his profesional career illustrating short stories and gag pages for Spirou magazine from 1998 (texts by Thiriet, Zabus or Janssens). He also worked as a background artist on an album in the series 'Charly' by Magda and Lapière. After winning a prize at a Walloon comics contest, he made his breakthrough. He created his first big series with writer Toldac for Vécu magazine, called 'Les Châtiments de l'An Mil'. In 2003, he launched the series 'Frontière' with Rodolphe in the collection Polyptyque of the publishing house Lombard. Marchal and Rodolphe continued their collaboration with 'Le Village' (Bamboo, 2008) and 'Namibia', a spin-off series of Léo's 'Kenya' (Dargaud, 2010). Text (c) Lambiek