Benec is a scriptwriter who has the rare luxury of being able to take his time, turning and mulling over his ideas until they are perfect. This is because for Benec, scriptwriting is a professional pleasure, as he continues to hold down a "real job" in parallel as an IT consultant. Writing is of course an appreciated outlet, though the author equally enjoys his career in computing. Benec first came into the world of scriptwriting at the request of an artist friend, and if his first attempt fell short, it opened the door to a bright future in a new field.
Benec collaborated with artist Giuseppe Liotti on a short story for the first edition of the Prix Raymond Leblanc, with the pair emerging victorious. This initial success opened the doors to publisher Le Lombard, a step up that Benec took without hesitation, joining up with Thomas Legrain to produce the political thriller "Sisco" (Europe Comics 2017). This series featured a special agent working for the French secret service at the Elysée, and it was just the beginning: from uchronia, to the 1920s, to futuristic fiction, Benec has explored genre after genre, producing new stories and worlds one after the other, slowly but surely.
Thomas Legrain's talent was obvious from the word go.
He's been drawing for as long as he can remember, and he did his first comic book at the age of twelve. As a keen admirer of the likes of Van Hamme and Travis Charest, he soon developed a taste for realism and meticulous backdrops. Nonetheless, when he reached the time in his life to make those first career choices, he actually chose to study history and criminology, as a backup to his artistic activities.
What with his incredible capacity for hard work, he still managed to complete an album a year alongside his studies. As soon as he'd finished with higher education, he published a few panels online. It only took him two months to be spotted by Jean-Claude Bartoll ("Insiders"), who he then worked with on "Mortelle Rivière" with Glénat, and "L'Agence" with Casterman. Three years and seven published albums later, he achieved his childhood dream and landed himself a contract with Le Lombard, where he collaborated with writer Benec on the "Sisco" series (Europe Comics 2017), a political thriller.
In 2015, he allowed himself a little break from "Sisco, " in order to make time to work with Stephen Desberg on "Baghdad Inc." (2016 Europe Comics), a techno-thriller based in war-torn Iraq. Another triumph of realistic illustration techniques!