Vincent Mahé is a French Illustrator, known for his beautifully detailed and charming illustrations, whose work has featured most recently in the French title La Petit Cour, (“The Little Courtyard”), a collection of essays published by Arrêt sur images.
Vincent was born in Paris and moved to Rennes to study art at the age of 16, before moving back to Paris in 2003. He then studied Animation at Gobelins, and worked as a set designer in the animation industry following graduation in 2008. During this time he began to develop his own personal work and in 2012 he took the plunge into freelance illustration and created a co-working studio with friends.
Edward’s work has been exhibited in Paris many times, initially in an exhibition called ‘The Parisianer’, where 100 illustrators had to imagine a cover for a fake Parisian ‘New Yorker’, as well as for a pop-up store called Condensed, and for a party at Pocko, the agency that represents him.
His work has featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Eurostar, Wired, Nobrow, L’Echonova and La Gargone Editions.
Vincent sketches a lot and always starts his work with very tiny, thumbnail sketches. After scanning in his thumbnails he then sketches on top to create his final designs using photoshop to add line and colour.
“I have a large number of influences,” he noted in a short interview for NoBrow Press, publishers of his first book, 750 Years in Paris, released in English in 2015. “I have always been a huge fan of Hergé, but I can also cite Sempé, Voutch, Sasek, Eyvind Earle, Chris Ware of course and Ottomo. More widely in Art History: Hokusai and Japanese prints in general, all the work of Edward Hopper… I’ve always been interested by architecture and the history of cities in general. Le Corbusier, Jean Prouvé, Mies Von Der Rohe and Thom Mayne are some of the many architects/ designers that I respect the most.”
• La Petit Cour (“The Little Courtyard”), “a tasty collection of false moral lessons”, published in French featuring illustrations by Vincent Mahé is available now (published in French), direct from Arrêt sur images – order it here
• Follow Vincent Mahé on Instagram
The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Comic Art, Comic Creator Spotlight, Comics, Creating Comics, Features
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