Welcome to hope

Damien Vanderstraeten is a French comic artist and photographer, who also works under the pen name Vanders. After his studies in Applied Arts, Vanderstraeten began his career in the advertising field, working in the environment of Lille. After two years, he got a job with the video game studio Oeil pour Oeil through Eric Hérenguel. He stayed there for two years, and then focused on comics while working at Hérenguel's atelier Fabrik. He teamed up with Damien Marie, with whom he collaborated on an animation project, that eventually evolved in the anthropomorphic western comic 'Règlement de Contes', that was published by Soleil between 2003 and 2005. By now signing with Vanders, he continued to work with Marie on several comics, including the thriller series 'Welcome to Hope' (Bamboo, 2006-2008), the one-shot 'Parce que le paradis n'existe pas' (Bamboo, 2009) and 'Back to Perdition' (Vents d'Ouest, 2010-2011). With Gihef he made 'Liverfool', a comic about Allan Williams, the first Beatles manager, published by Emmanuel Proust Éditions in 2012. Text (c) Lambiek