Hearts of Steel - Volume 1 - Debree, Cyrano, and Me

José Luis Munuera was born in 1972 in southern Spain. After studying fine arts at the University of Granada, he became an illustrator of historietas, as comics are called in Spain. But the 1990s would prove a difficult period for newspapers and comic book publishing. This pushed Munuera to leave Spain for Angoulême, France. His hard work convinced French publisher Delcourt to publish his first series, "Les Potamoks, " with Joann Sfar as the writer.
When it met with limited success, the dynamic duo pitched their work to another publisher, Dargaud. And thus came into being the adventures of "Merlin, " the famous magician who was never far from loyal companions Tartine the ogre and Jambon the pig. The series captured quite an audience, and when Sfar no longer had time to produce the scripts, their ongoing adventures came to be illustrated by Jean-David Morvan.
This would be the beginning of a long artistic partnership between Munuera and Morvan. Dupuis soon contacted the duo to take on the reboot of its hallmark character: Spirou. Later, with "Le Signe de la Lune, " co-written with his friend Enrique Bonet, Munuera really came into his own; the series was published as part of the Long Courier collection by Dargaud, and received rave reviews from both critics and the public at large.
To this day his productive collaborations continue with the series "Sortilèges" (Dargaud; "Spellbound, " Europe Comics 2015), scripted by Jean Dufaux, and "Fraternity, " scripted by Juan Diaz Canales. Also in 2014 he started a new creation of his own, taking care of both the art and script: the adventure series "Les Campbell, " published by Dupuis ("The Campbells, " Europe Comics). BéKa is a code name--almost like a scientific formula that two Toulouse-based science students could have come up with together.
In fact, BéKa is the special alchemy created by Caroline Roque and Bertrand Escaich. Caroline was preparing her doctoral degree in biology while Bertrand was beginning to write scripts for comics. When she wasn't studying molecules, Caroline was writing novels and short stories that would soon be adapted into film. When one of her stories won a top prize in a Toulouse festival, the temptation to devote herself to full-time writing became too strong.
Caroline and Bertrand became a fully-fledged writing duo. Together they have worked on several successful series, including "Chinn" (Bamboo), "Filles Uniques" (Dargaud Benelux; Europe Comics for the English edition) and "Coeur Collège" (Dupuis; Europe Comics for the English edition). In 2022, they teamed up with Bob to create "L'École des petits monstres" (Dupuis; "The School for Little Monsters, " Europe Comics). José Luis Munuera was born in 1972 in southern Spain.
After studying fine arts at the University of Granada, he became an illustrator of historietas, as comics are called in Spain. But the 1990s would prove a difficult period for newspapers and comic book publishing. This pushed Munuera to leave Spain for Angoulême, France. His hard work convinced French publisher Delcourt to publish his first series, "Les Potamoks, " with Joann Sfar as the writer. When it met with limited success, the dynamic duo pitched their work to another publisher, Dargaud.
And thus came into being the adventures of "Merlin, " the famous magician who was never far from loyal companions Tartine the ogre and Jambon the pig. The series captured quite an audience, and when Sfar no longer had time to produce the scripts, their ongoing adventures came to be illustrated by Jean-David Morvan. This would be the beginning of a long artistic partnership between Munuera and Morvan.
Dupuis soon contacted the duo to take on the reboot of its hallmark character: Spirou. Later, with "Le Signe de la Lune, " co-written with his friend Enrique Bonet, Munuera really came into his own; the series was published as part of the Long Courier collection by Dargaud, and received rave reviews from both critics and the public at large. To this day his productive collaborations continue with the series "Sortilèges" (Dargaud; "Spellbound, " Europe Comics 2015), scripted by Jean Dufaux, and "Fraternity, " scripted by Juan Diaz Canales.
Also in 2014 he started a new creation of his own, taking care of both the art and script: the adventure series "Les Campbell, " published by Dupuis ("The Campbells, " Europe Comics).