Dominique Bertail in Tokyo !

2025-07-06 2025-07-06

こぎつね

From Saturday 1 November to Sunday 2 November 2025. The Tokyo BD Festival will welcome comic book artist Dominique Bertail, in collaboration with Dupuis Publishing!

In 2025, as we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, we are led to question once again the meaning of ‘memory’ and ‘resistance.’ Jean-David Morvan, co-writer of Madeleine, résistante, carefully recounts the story of Madeleine Riffaud, protagonist and co-author of the comic book, to weave a story that touches the very heart of her life. Dominique Bertail's delicate and poetic drawings brilliantly illustrate the tension that reigned in occupied Paris and the determination of the young Madeleine.

The fourth volume, which concludes this arc of Madeleine Riffaud's life during the Second World War, is scheduled for release this autumn, and an exhibition will be held in the entrance hall of the Lycée Français International de Tokyo to mark the event.

We look forward to seeing you there!

作家プロフィール

Dominique Bertail
（ドミニク・ベルタイユ）

Dominique Bertail was born in 1972 in Tours. Influenced by Lucky Luke, Blueberry and Akira, he studied contemporary art at the Beaux-Arts in Rennes, worked on sculpture and painting at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen (Scotland) before joining the comic book workshop at the Beaux-Arts in Angoulême.

There, he met teacher and author Thierry Smolderen, with whom he launched (in 1999) the first French website dedicated to comic book creation and history: Coconino-world.com. At the same time, the duo published L'Enfer des Pelgram with Éditions Delcourt between 1998 and 2000.

Bertail developed a striking realistic style, characterised by bold colours. He then published Shandy, un anglais dans l'Empire in 2004 and 2006, a Napoleonic diptych written by Matz, scriptwriter of the series Le tueur.

Reuniting with Smolderen, Bertail began work in 2008 at Dargaud on Ghost Money, a formidable geopolitical thriller. His precise and aesthetic drawing style is universally acclaimed, lending elegance to the futuristic setting of the series, bringing to life the secret wars that punctuate it and adding emotion to the dramatic love story of its heroine, Chamza. Ghost Money came to an end in 2016 with its fifth volume, Le Black Cloud, a perfect conclusion to a work celebrated for both its graphic intelligence and its script.

Between the two Ghost Money books, Bertail joined Éditions Dupuis in 2014 with Omaha Beach, 6 juin 1944 (with Morvan and Tréfouël), launching the Aire libre / Magnum photos collection, which recounts the legendary photographs of the famous agency in comic book form. Bertail then produced the first volume of the pulp SF series Infinity 8, joining a super team composed of Trondheim, Vatine, Zep, Vehlmann, Boulet and Guibert. The album Romances et macchabées was released in 2017 by Rue de Sèvres, followed by a series of comics.

Bertail reunited with Zep at the same publisher in 2019 with the one-shot Paris 2119, a deeply disturbing tale of love and anticipation set against a backdrop of technological excess and state lies. At ease with all tempos, Bertail then signed with Fluide Glacial for the two volumes of the delightful Mondo Reverso, a western scripted by Arnaud Le Gouëfflec, where the gunslingers are women and the saloon girls are bearded men in frilly dresses. Bertail also made an appearance in 2019 in L'atelier Mastodonte, a collective of comic book stars who made their mark in the Journal Spirou.

In addition to his work in comics, Dominique Bertail uses his wide range of talents in illustration (Fluide Glacial, Bayard Presse) and storyboarding, for example for the Freefonix series by Jérôme France and Pierre-Alain Chartier. Bertail is also in demand in the film industry, having worked on the storyboard for the film Qui a tué Pamela Rose (2003), directed by Eric Lartigau.

In 2020, Dominique Bertail returns to the Aire libre collection and Jean-David Morvan for a long-term biography of the resistance fighter Madeleine Riffaud, produced in collaboration with the latter. The first volume of this trilogy event - Madeleine, résistante - will first be released in the form of three limited-edition softcover booklets.

This is an opportunity to discover, through splendidly precise drawings, the extraordinary destiny of a resistance fighter who witnessed the liberation of Paris.