William Vance

Infobox Comics creator


name = William Vance
imagesize =
caption =
birthname = William van Cutsem
birthdate = birth date and age|1935|9|8
location = Anderlecht, Belgium
deathdate =
deathplace =
nationality = Belgian
area = artist, writer
alias =
notable works = "XIII" "Bob Morane" "Bruce J. Hawker" "Bruno Brazil"
awards = full list

William Vance, the pen name of William van Cutsem, born August 9, 1935, is a Belgian comics artist widely known throughout a long career for his distinctive style and work in Franco-Belgian comics.

Biography

William Van Cutsem was born in Anderlecht near Brussels in 1935. After his military service in 1955-1956, he studied for four years at the Royal Academy for Visual Arts. Originally from Flanders, he worked most of his life in France, and moved later to Spain. [De Weyer, Geert (2005). "William Vance". In België gestript, pp. 167-169. Tielt: Lannoo.]

William Vance started drawing for the comics magazine "Tintin" in 1962. After drawing complete real life stories of four pages for a few years, he started work on his first series, "Howard Flynn", written by Yves Duval. Three albums followed, before he created other short lived series such as the Western "Ringo" and "Roderik". His first success followed with the series about secret agent "Bruno Brazil", written by Tintin's editor-in-chief Greg, as one of the comics that started the revival and repositioning of Tintin as a more adult oriented magazine.

From 1967 on, he continued the stories of "Bob Morane" in "Femmes d'aujourd'hui", a magazine aimed at adult women. This science fiction series, based on the novels by Henri Vernes, was started by Dino Attanasio and continued by Gerald Forton before Vance took over and made it a success. A few years later, the series moved to "Tintin" as well, and Vance was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Coria.

Vance meanwhile started two new series, "Ramiro", with stories set in medieval Spain, and from 1976 onwards, "Bruce J. Hawker", his personal favourite, starring a lieutenant with the Royal Navy. [Van Herck, Johan (2005). Defensie Stript! Evere: Defensie DG IPR. ISBN 90-75172-03-6]

His final breakthrough and largest commercial success came in 1984, when writer Jean Van Hamme proposed a new series, "XIII". First serialised in "Spirou", this series of contemporary adventures with action, violence, and complicated intrigues, let Vance draw upon his talent for realistic drawings, action scenes and exotic settings.

Bibliography

Awards

* 1989: nominated for Best Long Comic Strip at the Haxtur Awards, Spain
* 2003: nominated for the Audience Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, France
* 2005: Bronzen Adhemar in Turnhout, Belgium
* 2006: nominated for Best Comic (Dutch language) at the Prix Saint-Michel, Brussels, Belgium:: - nominated for Favourite European Comic at the Eagle Awards, United Kingdom

ources

* [http://bdoubliees.com/tintinbelge/auteurs6/vance.htm William Vance publications in Belgian"Tintin"] and [http://bdoubliees.com/journaltintin/auteurs6/vance.htm French "Tintin"] , [http://bdoubliees.com/journalspirou/auteurs6/vance.htm "Spirou"] , [http://bdoubliees.com/bodoi/auteurs6/vance.htm "BoDoï"] BDoubliées fr_icon
* [http://www.bedetheque.com/auteur-7384-BD-Vance-William.html William Vance albums] Bedetheque fr_icon;Footnotes

External links

* [http://lambiek.net/artists/v/vance.htm William Vance biography] on Lambiek Comiclopedia