mediathek.salzburg.at • Die Internet-Zweigstelle der Öffentlichen Bibliotheken im Land Salzburg. Worlds Unseen - Volume 2

Born in Lyon in 1969, Georges Abolin was attracted by drawing and comics very early on, along with his friend Olivier Pont. In middle school, he discovered his passion for animated movies. In 1987, he went to Paris to study animation, and in 1989 he had his first job at Amblimation in London. In parallel, he tried his hand at comics contests, without luck. In 1991, however, his friend Olivier won first prize, gaining them entry into the publishing world. The two companions started by creating the trilogy 'Kucek' (Vents d'ouest), between 1993 and 1996. At the same time, Abolin went to work for Disney studios, first in Australia, and then in Paris, contributing to such projects as 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1996), 'Hercules' (1997), and 'Tarzan' (1999). In 1999, he left Disney and moved to Martinique to focus on 'Total Maîtrise' (Vent d'ouest, from 2001 to 2011), again with a script by Olivier Pont. In 2004, the prolific pair also published the two-part graphic novel 'Où le regard ne porte pas' (Dargaud; 'Worlds Unseen,' Europe Comics in English).

Olivier Pont was born in 1969 in a Parisian suburb. When he was barely 10 days old, he made the surprisingly precocious decision to go and live in the South of France. And thank goodness he did, because that was where, at 10 years old, he met his loyal associate, Georges Abolin, who also spent his time scribbling on anything that looked remotely like paper. As soon as they had their high school finals under their belts, they wisely turned their backs on their studies and moved to Paris where they both enrolled at CFT Gobelins, an art school. Two years later, the pair found themselves working at London's Universal Studios as animation artists on two feature-length films: 'Fievel Goes West' and 'A Dinosaur's Story.' In the meanwhile, Olivier won the 1991 FNAC comic book competition, and finally made up his mind to dedicate himself to comic book art. With Georges writing the script, he created the series 'Cap'taine Kucek' (Vents d'ouest, three volumes between 1993 and 1996), which he followed up with 'La honte' (Vents d'ouest, two volumes in 1997 and 2003), and then 'Arthur et les pirates' (Vents d'ouest, 1994). In 2004, Georges and Olivier published the two-part graphic novel 'Où le regard ne porte pas' (Dargaud; 'Worlds Unseen,' Europe Comics). The two friends also collaborated on the series 'Totale maîtrise' (Vent d'ouest, five albums between 2001 and 2011), this time with Georges doing the artwork. After trying his hand at radio, theater, singing and cup and ball games, Olivier finally decided to pursue his career in cinema and directing. Between 2005 and 2013 he co-directed (with Elizabeth Marre) some short movies, adverts, and four episodes of the series 'Ainsi soient-ils' (Arte). While still pursuing his writing projects, in 2015 he came back around to comic books, producing a collection of seven short stories about seven different women called 'DesSeins' (Dargaud 2015, Europe Comics 2017, 'Fragments of Femininity').