Jean Van Hamme (born 16 January 1939) is a Belgian novelist and scenario writer of comic books. He has written scenarios for a number of Belgian/French comic series, including Histoire sans héros, Thorgal, XIII and Largo Winch.
Jean Van Hamme was born in Brussels in 1939. After having studied business administration at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, he worked as a journalist and in the marketing department of Philips. In the meantime, he started writing, and one of his first scenario's was adapted by Paul Cuvelier in 1968. In 1976, he became a full time writer, and in the next few years he published seven novels and some movie scripts, e.g. for Diva.
Thorgal, XIII and Largo Winch
Van Hamme's main breakthrough came in 1977, when he created the Viking hero Thorgal for Grzegorz Rosi?ski, a relatively unknown Polish comic artist. The mix of medieval legends and heroic fantasy soon became a huge success in the comics magazine Tintin. The duo won major awards in the French and Belgian comic book industry.
In the next decade, Jean Van Hamme created two new bestselling series, XIII (inspired by Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity) with William Vance and Largo Winch (based on his own novels) with Philippe Francq. Other series like Les maîtres de l'orge and Chninkel have received more critical acclaim but lower sales.
The fame of Van Hamme as one of the major comic authors of Europe is quite established. The artists he works with draw the characters in a realistic style, even if the stories themselves tend to verge towards fantasy.
Les maîtres de l'orge and Largo Winch have both been made into a TV series, and XIII and again Largo Winch were the basis for computer games.
Blake and Mortimer
After the death of Edgar Pierre Jacobs, when the last unfinished story of Blake and Mortimer was completed by Bob de Moor, the editor asked Van Hamme to write new stories. The first one, The Francis Blake Affair, appeared in 1996 and was a huge success, and Van Hamme has since created two more Blake and Mortimer stories.
In 2002, Jean Van Hamme announced his intention to write fewer comics, and to concentrate more on theatre and film scripts, but seems to have changed his mind again and has since created two new stories. He seems to have abandoned two of his most successful series, Thorgal and XIII, although he does not oppose other authors from continuing the series. He has also announced his intention to create a spin-off series of Thorgal, focusing on his son Jolan.
Van Hamme is one of the best selling European comics writers, with many of his series in the best selling lists each year. In 2006, the latest Thorgal placed fifth in the French list with 280,000 copies published, while Lady S., with Philippe Aymond, had 90,000 copies. In 2005, XIII and Largo Winch shared the fourth place with 500,000 copies each.
