Hercules, Intergalactic Agent

Zabus was born in 1971 in Namur, Belgium. As a little boy he was already a daydreamer, a trait which, he claims, remains to this day. He discovered the joys of story-writing at the age of 10, when he started reading an Agatha Christie novel and stopped after 10 pages to write the rest. When he was a teenager, he took to buying old typewriters on which he'd pretend to type up all his imaginary novels. At the age of 18, he took up studies in philology and then journalism, because these seemed to him the subjects that would best prepare him for being a professional writer. He later found out that it was quite the opposite! After he'd completed his studies, he sent off a load of comic book projects that were refused by every publisher. He became a French teacher for a few years and then decided to give up teaching and focus his energy entirely on his theatrical activities as an actor and playwright. He started to write comic books again, first publishing a few short stories in the magazine "Spirou" and then two kids' series with Dupuis: "Le monde selon François" (2007-2009) and "Agathe Saugrenu" (2007-2009). Alongside his comic book projects he wrote and acted in several plays with Belgian theater companies such as "L'Infini théâtre," "Les Baladins du miroir" and "Les Zygomars." His latest comic book projects are "Les larmes du seigneur afghan" (Dupuis; "Tears of an Afghan Warlord," Europe Comics), "Macaroni!" (Dupuis, Europe Comics in English), a touching graphic novel about Italian immigration, and the charming "Incroyable!" (Dargaud; "Incredible!", Europe Comics), out in 2020.

Antonello Dalena got his start by illustrating short stories for Disney ("Mickey," "Donald Duck"). He also drew character designs for the cartoon production company Artoonic. Then he became a student of Alessandro Barbucci, illustrator of "SkyDoll" (Soleil), and discovered the Franco-Belgian "bande dessinée." Impressed by his abilities, Barbucci entrusted him with two volumes of "Monster Allergy" (Tunué; Insight/Europe Comics in English). Dalena then illustrated the first volume of "Lys" (Soleil). Eventually, alongside Guillaume Bianco, he illustrated his first entire series, "Ernest & Rebecca" (Le Lombard; Papercutz/Europe Comics in English), which won an award at Angouleme in 2013. He alternated the illustration of "Ernest & Rebecca" with the series "Sybil, la fée cartable" (Le Lombard), written by Michel Rodrigue. A young prodigy of the Italian school, Dalena is an artist who doesn't impose on himself any specific stylistic identity, in order to find his own graphic personality between manga and animation. His most recent work is "Hercule, agent intergalactique" (Le Lombard; "Hercules Intergalactic Agent," Europe Comics, 2019).