The Black Moon Chronicles - Volume 13 - The Prophecy - The Prophecy

François Marcela-Froideval was born in 1958 and started writing around the age of 15. He studied law and literature, and started getting involved in mind games, war games and role-playing in France in the late 1970s with the Jeux Descartes club. He became an advisor, director and collector, and also contributed to the conception of the magazine "Jeux de Stratégie." He worked for the magazine as a journalist and also created a dozen or so card games.
He also founded the Federation of Strategic and Tactical Simulation Games, of which he is the president. On top of that, he founded the magazine "Casus Belli, " where he was editor-in-chief right up until he left for the USA in 1982. In the States, he became assistant to the president of the TSR (publisher of "Dungeons and Dragons"), and co-wrote, with Gary Gygax, several rulebooks for "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, " "Monster Manual II, " and "Oriental Adventures." In 1986, when he returned to France, he managed the distribution and translation of TSR products in France until 1989.
Next, he went to work as an advisor for Infogrames video game publishing, and he also worked with Cyro Interactive, for whom he produced "Dragon Lore, " then "Deo Gratias" and then finally the strategy game "Chroniques de la lune noire." All in all he created about 20 games, and multiple role-play scenarios. Alongside artist Olivier Ledroit, he wrote his first comics script in 1989, "Les Chroniques de la lune noire" ("The Black Moon Chronicles, " Europe Comics 2017), the first album of the new publishing house Zenda.
A number of other series followed, and Froideval soon produced the sequel of "The Black Moon Chronicles" with publisher Dargaud, first with Olivier Ledroit, and then Cyril Pontet. In November 2001 the first book of the series "Les Arcanes de la lune noire" (Dargaud; "The Black Moon Arcana, " Europe Comics 2019) was released, once again in collaboration with Ledroit. In parallel, Froideval continued to come up with new series, all while pursuing existing ones.
A whole new arc of "The Black Moon Chronicles" began in 2012, with Fabrice Angleraud doing the illustrations. Volume 20 was released in 2019 (Europe Comics 2020). Froideval now spends his time working with young artists on future comic books or series. Cyril Pontet was born in 1971 in Marseille. Once he'd finished his university studies, he decided to try his luck in the comic book world in 1993, and by the following year he'd already signed his first contract.
In 1995 he replaced Olivier Ledroit as the illustrator for the cult fantasy series "Chroniques de la Lune Noire" (Dargaud, Europe Comics 2017, "The Black Moon Chronicles"). Self-taught, the artist's first big influences were the dynamic frames of American comics peopled with unusual, colorful heroes. Like so many others of his generation, monthlies such as 'Strange' and 'Titans, ' as well as the 'Arédit' and 'Artima' publications introduced him to the talents of Jack Kirby, John Buscema, John Romita, Gene Colan, Joe Kubert, Frazetta and many others.
A few detours via the Franco-Belgian scene with "Thorgal, " "Le Vagabond des limbes, " "Fantax" and "Taar le rebelle" polished off his imaginative conquests with heroic fantasy, super-heroes, pulp fiction, Cthulian horror à la H. P. Lovecraft, gothic mystery, mythology and, most of all, swords and sorcery. His influences also include novelists such as Tolkien, Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Conan Doyle, Brian Lumley and more recently George R.
R. Martin, Terry Pratchett and David Gemmel. His other interests areaAncient and medieval history, hoplology - the study of human combative behavior - and the legends and epics of ancient civilizations. He also participates in costume, character, graphic environment and logo design projects.