Cosey

Born in 1950 near Lausanne, Swiss scriptwriter and comic artist Cosey is a major figure in Franco-Belgian comics, awarded the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2017. It was in the heart of the Swiss Alps that Cosey developed a love for vast snow-covered landscapes, American literature and comic art. Under Derib's tutelage, he learned the craft of storytelling through panels, a field in which he demonstrated a talent that quickly opened him the doors to the magazine Tintin. But, uncomfortable with the well-trodden paths of the 9th Art, Cosey preferred to create a hero who resembled him: Jonathan. This inner journey, which Cosey constantly nourished through his travels, his reading and his reflections, was honored with the Best Album Award at Angoulême in 1983. This success allowed him to express his talent in new ways, as in A la Recherche de Peter Pan (In Search of Peter Pan, Lombard, 1985). Other albums followed at Aire Libre (Dupuis): Voyage en Italie (In Search of Shirley), Saigon-Hanoi, Zeke raconte des histoires (Zeke Tells Stories), etc. This does not prevent him from regularly returning to his Jonathan series. In 2016, the author revisited the character of Mickey Mouse in a graphic novel (Glénat), a tribute to Walt Disney’s legendary hero in which Cosey imagines Mickey and Minnie’s first meeting. He also published a graphic novel in black and white with Calypso (Futuropolis), a human story—a contemporary love story featuring elderly characters. An unexpected way to invite the reader, once again, on a comic strip journey. In 2017, Cosey received the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. In October 2021, Cosey published the final volume of Jonathan’s adventures: La Piste de Yéshé (The Trail of Yeshe). In 2025, he released a new album titled Yiyun, published by Le Lombard. In 2007, Daniel Maghen published a graphic biography dedicated to him titled Echo, followed in 2021 by an art book—a collection of his travel journals—titled À l’heure où les dieux dorment encore.