After finishing his exams, Hervé Nau (Herval) moved from his native Rouen to Paris to study Modern Literature. He did his first artwork through a communication agency called Anaconda, where he was modelmaker, roughman and artistic director. He also joined an artists' collective called BD Clip, where he teamed up with Jean-Luc Belin to create the children's comic 'Captain Pirate' for Nucléa in 2000.