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Could you introduce yourself to the Italian readers?

I started in comics in 1977 in the legendary magazine PILOTE with 4 short stories dealing with astronauts lost in space, then in 1982 I drew 4 heroic fantasy graphic novels called THE LEGEND OF CARGAL THE KNIGHT, also for Dargaud. Since then I've also done 2 humor books for Glenat, contributed to an anthology at Soleil, and done covers for the Italian CONAN comics. I do a lot of advertising and also work for animation and the making of animated videoclips.

Which are your influences?

Frazetta, Buscema, Kubert, Cheret, Alex Raymond, Giraud, Gotlib, Uderzo, Druillet, all made me dream!

Which comics do you currently read? Which authors do you follow?

Blueberry by Giraud, Torpedo by Bernet/Abuli, Peter Pan by Loisel, XIII by Vance & Van Hamme, DareDevil, Superman by Tim Sale, Batman by John Bolton etc... and also Simon Bisley, Marc Silvestri, Alex Ross, Kevin o' Neil, Travis Charest, Moebius and many others. The list would be too long...

What can you reveal us about your Robur?It seems a sort of a steam-punk sci-fi ... This looks like a sort of new trend in comics, I mean we have Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the upcoming Image series Clockmaker, the Victorian ... in Italy we have a very interesting miniseries titled "Giulio Maraviglia" set in a steam-punk hypothetical Rome at the beginning of the XX century ...

I hadn't drawn a full-length graphic novel for 12 years and I felt like creating a whole new universe, so when I read Jean Marc [Lofficier]'s synopsis, I had an inspiration and suggested we move the story to the 1930s; he agreed and I was thereafter able to create this strange ArtDeco world, in a steampunk universe-- and you saw the results!

What do you know about the Italian comics market? Would you like to collaborate with any Italian artist?

My childhood was spent reading "fumetti" like Blek, Zembla, Capitan Miki, etc. and today, I do covers featuring these characters for SEMIC, which is my homage to Italian comics. Collaborating with Italian authors? Why not? They're as good as American or French ones! Of course! I'm open to any proposals from Italy!

Here in Italy there is a never-ending discussion about "the crisis of Comics". I am really curious to know your opinion regarding the following topics:

1. Comics: a real Art form?

Every discipline is an Art to the extent that it communicates with the public, to the extent that there is communication and exchange between the artist and his public; Comics that can do that are works of art!

2. The future of Comics as a mainstream product in the same entertainment market of movies, CDs, DVDs, videogames ... which way to reach a wider audience? maybe on the Web?

If comics continue to increase in quality, if publishers have the intention to promote them, then the future of comics will be good. Today we live in a consumption society... There are lots of choices... Only the best ones have a future!

[Translated from French by Jean Marc Lofficier]

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