URBAN ASPIRINES: THORGAL : Grzegorz Rosinski

Saturday, June 30, 2012

THORGAL : Grzegorz Rosinski - Jean Van Hamme

Thorgal is a Belgian - Polish comic book series by the Belgian writer Jean Van Hamme and the Polish graphic artist Grzegorz Rosinski.

This comic series started in 1977 and was originally published in serial form by the magazine "Tintin" and from 1980 on in hardcover volumes by Le Lombard

The series, which combines the classic Heroic Fantasy with elements of Science Fiction follows the adventures of the hero Thorgal , "The Child of the Stars" , an orphan discovered by Vikings in a space capsule during a tempest and raised among them

Grzegorz Rosinski : The Artist
Grzegorz Rosinski was born in Stalowa Wola in 1941.

In 1967 he graduated the Liceum of Fine Arts in Warsaw and then joined the Academy of Fine Arts of Warsaw.

In 1976 Rosinski received a scholarship in Belgium, where he met Jean Van Hamme, who wrote for him the series Thorgal, one of the most popular European comic book series.

Since 1980, 33 volumes have been published.

Thorgal 1980-still published (with Jean van Hamme and Yves Sente), 33 albums, Le Lombard .

Yves Sente was born in Uccle near Brussels in 1964.

After studying in Belgium, he went to high school in Arlington Heights, Illinois before returning to Belgium to study law at the Facultes universitaires Saint-Louis and international affairs at the Universite catholique de Louvain.

He contributed cartoons to a number of magazines from 1986 on, including The Wall Street Journal Europe.

In 2011, a major exhibition has been showed during the summer in the medieval town of Saint-Ursanne, Switzerland.

In 2001 the Rosinski-Van Hamme duo published yet another comic book titled Western, based on a western plot, in which Rosinski changed his style considerably.

Since 2004 he published a series on Count Skarbek (with Yves Sente).

Jean Van Hamme : The Story Teller

Jean Van Hamme was born in Brussels in 1939.
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.

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.

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.

In 2006, he ended his run on Thorgal with album 29, "Le Sacrifice". He has also announced his intention to create a spin-off series of Thorgal, focusing on his son Jolan. In fact, a new duo, Grzegorz Rosinski and Yves Sente continued the serie with four more albums (#30 to #33) which constitute the "cycle of Jolan"

THORGAL AEGIRSSON

Thorgal Aegirsson: Son of Varth and Hayne, grandson of Xargos - captain of a spaceship on a way to Earth in search of energy sources.

In the wild and inhospitable European far north, in the land of Scandinavian myth and runic legend, Viking warriors discover a child in a space capsule.

Raised by Vikings (after the spaceship crashed on Earth) but not one of them, he shows traits of character and morality that many Vikings consider those of a weak man.

In reality, if needs be, he is a courageous and skillful warrior and an especially skilled archers.

In the first album of the series "The Sorceress Betrayed", Thorgal is banished and sentenced to death by Gandalf-the-Mad (no, not that Gandalf of "The Lord Of The Rings"), king of the Vikings of the North, who despises him as a "bastard", and opposes to the love between his daughter Aaricia and Thorgal.

Rescued by a mysterious woman called Slive, he must accept to serve her for one year. It is later revealed (in The Island Of Frozen Seas) that she is a survivor of a race of Ancient Astronauts (actually Atlants who fled from Earth by the times of the cataclysm) whose ship crashed in the North Pole several years ago.

Thorgal is revealed the be the last descendant of the "People of the Stars".Leif Haraldson adopts him and gives him the names of his gods: Thorgal Aegirsson, son of Thor (god of lightning) and son of Aegir (master of the sea).

Upon Leif’s death, the Viking chief Gandalf the Insane isolates Thorgal from others. Only the friendship of Aaricia, the daughter of Gandalf, brightens Thorgal’s solitary childhood. Their mutual affection quickly turns into true love.

His life's goal is to find a place for himself and his family to live in peace. For a time they strip him of his memory, and he becomes the pirate lord Shaigan, though his compassionate personality remained unchanged.

The tale takes place in the seventh century and draws its narrative power from the imaginary world of magic spells and legends, where men and gods still mix.

More than a simple adventure story, this series is a true apology for freedom and the fight against the arbitrary, because what stands out most in Thorgal’s personality is his deep sense of humanity...