Guy Delcourt

About Guy Delcourt

Guy Delcourt was born on March 27, 1958, in Versailles. At the age of 7, he experienced his first shock when his parents took him to the cinema but entered the wrong theater: Guy watched in awe the opening minutes of Frankenstein. From this fortunate incident, a strong taste for “counter-cultures” emerged, such as fantasy, science fiction, B-movies, and comic books, which he would devour in all their forms.

In 1972, at Furet du Nord in Lille, a second shock: the largest bookstore in Europe gathered Hergé, Franquin, Uderzo, Pratt, Jacobs, and Gotlib for a signing session! Enthralled, the high school student became a passionate collector, soon amassing a few thousand albums.

October 1977, third shock. Just after joining Essec, the prestigious business school, Guy Delcourt saw Star Wars for the first time. Three years later, he arrived in Los Angeles to take a position as a financial analyst. Unimpressed by finance, the young graduate preferred to interview Harrison Ford, thus beginning a journalism career that he continued upon returning to France. He wrote about fantasy cinema and comic books for several magazines, including Pilote, where he became editor-in-chief in 1985.

In early 1986, after being let go by Éditions Dargaud, he founded his own publishing house while the comic book industry was undergoing a severe economic crisis. His journalism experience drove him to explore new ideas. He proposed to the singer Renaud to adapt his songs into comic books: the album, published in October 1986, sold 100,000 copies. The publisher continuously sought to take comics off the beaten path by combining them with music, painting, literature (from Proust to Teulé), cinema, reportage, etc.

From the start, he met a generation of authors who shared his taste for the imaginative: with them, he built a series of works that renewed science fiction and fantasy in comics. Over the years, the production expanded and diversified, notably offering the elite of American comics.

In the 1990s, Guy Delcourt launched a youth comic book collection that innovated through the range of graphic choices offered.

In the 2000s, he published a manga collection under the Akata label, acquired Éditions Tonkam, and began learning Japanese.

In 2006, he was made a Knight of the National Order of Merit by the Minister of Culture. When he is not reading comic books, he delves into Hollywood cinema of the “golden age,” Asian cinema of all eras, the history of the Roman Empire, the tragedies of Racine and Shakespeare where he finds the emotions and intrigues that underpin all great narratives, and American television series whose inventive fervor is reminiscent of that in comic books.

In June 2011, he acquired a majority stake in Éditions Soleil, thus forming the leading independent group in the French-speaking comic book market by revenue.