Alain Ayroles is a French author, playwright, screenwriter and translator known best for his graphic novels ''

Garulfo ''Garulfo'' is a six-volume fantasy graphic novel created by writer Alain Ayroles, cartoonist Bruno Maïorana and colorist Thierry Leprévost. ''Garulfo'' is a humorous modern fable inspired by traditional folklore, legends and fairy tales. It i ...

'', '' De cape et de crocs'' and ''Les Indes Fourbes''.

Career

Education and early career

Alain Ayroles studied sequential art at the School of Fine Arts in Angoulême, France, where time spent as

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

gamemaster A gamemaster (GM; also known as game master, game manager, game moderator, referee, or storyteller) is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer role-playing game. They are m ...

to fellow students

Jean-Luc Masbou Jean-Luc Masbou (born in Figeac on 14 March 1963) is a French cartoonist. Masbou studied at the École supérieure de l'image of Angoulême. He has published the series ''L'Ombre de l'échafaud'', for which he wrote the scenario, and the series ' ...

and

Bruno Maïorana Bruno Maïorana (born 23 December 1966) is a French cartoonist and illustrator who quit the comics industry in 2014, at the height of his popularity. Biography After high school Bruno Maïorana enrolled in the fine art school in Angoulême, ...

laid the foundations for future collaborations on a series of highly successful

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

projects. For these games he created ''Contes et Racontars'', a fantasy universe that combined swashbuckling adventure with traditional legends, in which one of the players plays a wolf and another a fox, and where the gamemaster plays a non-player character in the guise of a rabbit. This universe would become the inspiration for two series: fairy tale ''

'' and the epic '' De cape et de crocs''. Ayroles got his break when a small publishing house, recently created by the young Guy Delcourt, hired Ayroles and several of his classmates to work on ''The Children of the Nile''. This publication helped launch the professional careers of authors such as Turf, Joel Mouclier, Claire Wendling and Christophe Gibelin, and

. Following this Ayroles began writing the scripts to his future graphic novels and spent much of his time researching French literature and poetry as well as 13th century vocabulary. In the meantime, he took a position at French animation studio IDDH to work on layouts, character creation and the scripts to their animated series'. Maoïrana, Masbou and Thierry Leprévost also worked at IDDH for a time.

Early successes

With

Ayroles wanted to turn the idea of the classic fairy tale on its head. With the script to the first two instalments and some draft drawings, he pitched the idea to a number of publishing houses. However, editors advised him to find someone to collaborate with as the boards did not meet with approval. So Ayroles approached Maïorana and together they pitched it to Delcourt who agreed to publish the story. Volume 1 was released in 1995. The series proved a commercial and critical success until it ended after six albums in 2002. In parallel to

, Ayroles and Masbou pitched a second series to Delcourt, which would prove even more successful. ''De cape et de crocs'' is a 17th-century theatrical comedy of fable and adventure full of references to French classical literature. Volume 1 was released in 1995, and success led to another 11 volumes being published over the next 21 years. Critical reception was positive, described by Actua BD as "becoming more and more of a classic". a series which mixes "comic, novel, theatre and cinema" that is "rich in a thousand and one references, expertly distilled by authors who are as cultivated as they are mischievous". The series ended in 2016. In 1998 Ayroles was awarded the Petit Robert prize for best comics writer at Quai des Bulles for ''Garulfo'' and ''De cape et de crocs''.

An established writer

Skill with words proves useful in translating the ''

Bone A bone is a Stiffness, rigid Organ (biology), organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red blood cell, red and white blood cells, store minerals, provid ...

'' series of comic books by Jeff Smith, whom Ayroles had been a fan of since the early 90s, and had brought to the attention of Delcourt. He worked on the first five volumes of the French version in collaboration with Anne Capuron. In 2008, his collaboration with Luigi Critone ''Seven Missionaries'' drew positive reviews, according to Actua BD the album is "particularly well-crafted from a scripted point of view" and littered with "provocative humour". ''Seven Missionaries'' recounts the adventures of seven not-so-Catholic priests who have to counter the Viking invasions in Ireland. Ayroles proved to be one of the few authors working on the ''Sept'' series to develop seven characters and a complete story in a single volume. From 2009, he published a new series with Maïorana and Thierry Leprévost, ''D'', which was inspired by the gothic world of vampires in a plot set in Victorian Britain. Teaming up with

Juanjo Guarnido Juanjo Guarnido (born 1967) is a Spanish illustrator and the co-author of the comic book series ''Blacksad''. Early life Guarnido was born in Granada, Spain. He studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Granada. Career G ...

, he wrote ''Les Indes Fourbes'' (''The treacherous Indies''), published in 2019, about the adventures of Pablos de Segovia, a character from the novel by

Francisco de Quevedo Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Santibáñez Villegas, Knight of the Order of Santiago (; 14 September 1580 – 8 September 1645) was a Spanish nobleman, politician and writer of the Baroque era. Along with his lifelong rival, Luis de Góngora, ...

'' El Buscon''. The album immediately met with great critical and public success, collecting three awards in France. In 2020 he worked with Fabien Nury, Benjamin Adam and Thibault Valetoux on the screenplay to ''

Paris Police 1900 ''Paris Police 1900'' is a French crime drama television series created by Fabien Nury that was first broadcast on 8 February 2021 on Canal+ in France and was shown on BBC Four in October 2021. A follow-up series of six episodes, featuring the ...

'', a period drama series for French television, featuring eight episodes of 52 minutes, broadcast on

Canal+ Canal+ (Canal Plus, , meaning 'Channel Plus'; sometimes abbreviated C+ or Canal) is a French premium television channel launched in 1984. It is 100% owned by the Groupe Canal+, which in turn is owned by Vivendi. The channel broadcasts several ki ...

. In 2021 he collaborated on a spin-off of Alex Alice's ''Castle of the stars'' series. ''The Chimeras of Venus'' is a five-chapter story drawn and colored by Étienne Jung. This steampunk-oriented space epic is developed in the same universe as the source series, between volumes 13 and 17, which Ayroles is also credited for.

Awards

*1998: The ''Petit Robert'' prize for best comics writer, awarded at Quai des Bulles for ''Garulfo'' and ''De cape et de crocs''. *2019: The ''Landerneau Prize'' (France) awarded by Régis Loisel for ''Les Indes fourbes''. *2019: The ''RTL Grand Prix'' for comics (France) for ''Les Indes fourbes''. *2019: Comic booksellers (France) prize for ''Les Indes fourbes''« Alain Ayroles et Juanjo Guarnido, lauréats du prix des libraires de BD »
on Livres Hebdo (consulted 31 January 2020)

Bibliography

''Garulfo''

Illustrated by Bruno Maïorana, colors by Thierry Leprévost. *1 *2 *3 *4 *5 *6

''De Cape et de crocs''

Illustrated by Jean-Luc Masbou *1 *2 *3 *4 includes one Act play ''Le Médecin imaginaire'' (The imaginary Doctor) *5 *6 *7 *8 *9 *10 *11 *12

''Sept''

Illustrated by Luigi Critone, colors by Lorenzo Pieri * Vol. 4:

''D''

Illustrated by Bruno Maïorana, colors by Thierry Leprévost *1 *2 *3

''Les Indes Fourbes''

Illustrated by Juanjo Guarnido * - Official Selection Angoulême Festival 2020

''Château des Etoiles''

Illustrated by Etienne Jung *

References

External links

Garulfo on Delcourt's website

De Cape et de Crocs
Website for the series by Alain Ayroles.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ayroles, Alain 20th-century French writers French children's writers French comics writers French male writers 1968 births Living people