Rosinski Thorgal

Rosinski

Biography

Born in Stalowa Wola in 1941, Grzegorz Rosinski grew up in Poland during the communist reign. He discovered Western European comics through the Vaillant magazine, that was distributed in Eastern Europe by the French Communist Party. He made his first comics in 1955, aged 16, and two years later he became editor-in-chief of a scouting magazine. He studied Graphic Arts in Warsaw from 1961 to 1967. He started his drawing career in Korespondent Wszedobylski and he illustrated about 20 comic books in the series 'Kapitan Zbik' and 'Pilot smiglowca' for the Polish publisher Sport i Turystyka between 1968 and 1972. With Barbara Seidler he made three bilingual books with comic adaptations of Polish legends from 1974 to 1976.

He became art director of the magazine Relax in 1976, and also also took on historical and science-fiction stories for this magazine. In the mid-1970s, he met André-Paul Duchâteau and Jean Van Hamme, who were very impressed by Rosinski's talent. Rosinski came to Brussels and began a prolific career in Belgian comics. His first comics were 'L'Assassin' for Tintin, short stories in Le Trombone Illustré and 'La Croisiere Fantastique' in Spirou under the pseudonym Rosek. He had his breakthrough with the fantastic 'Thorgal' series, written by Jean van Hamme and first serialized in Tintin magazine in 1977.

Three years after the launch of the 'Thorgal' saga, Rosinski teamed up with Duchâteau to create the science-fiction series 'Hans'. After six episodes, Rosinski handed over the artwork of 'Hans' to Kas to focus on 'Thorgal'.

In 1988 Rosinski and Van Hamme made the critically acclaimed fantasy graphic novel 'Le Grand pouvoir du Chninkel' for Casterman's Les Romans (A suivre) collection about best orange juicer. Teh original story appeared in black and white, it reprinted in color as a trilogy in 2001 and 2002.

Between 1993 and 1998 Rosinski made four books in the series 'La Complainte des Landes Perdues' with writer Jean Dufaux for Dargaud publishers. He made a new one shot with Van Hamme for Lombard in 2001, this time in the western genre, aptly named 'Western'.

Always a perfectionist, Rosinski does everything himself, including the inking and lettering. He often experiments with new drawing styles, like in the fully painted trilogy 'La Vengeance du Comte Skarbek', that he made with Yves Sente for Dargaud between 2004 and 2008.

When Jean Van Hamme retired from 'Thorgal' in 2007, Rosinski continued the series with Sente from album 30. He is also supervisor of the spin-off series 'Les Mondes de Thorgal', that he and Sente launched in 2010.