Bandes dessinées, abbreviated BDs and also referred to as Franco-Belgian comics, are comics that are usually originally in French and created for readership in France and Belgium. These countries have a long tradition in comics, separate from that of English-language comics. Belgium is a mostly bilingual country, and comics originally in Dutch are culturally a part of the world of bandes dessinées, even if the translation from French to Dutch far outweighs the other direction.
Enki Bilal is a French comic book creator and film director.
Marjane Satrapi is a French-Iranian graphic novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, film director, and children's book author. Her best-known works include the graphic novel Persepolis and its film adaptation, the graphic novel Chicken with Plums, Woman, Life, Freedom and the Marie Curie biopic Radioactive.
Rosemary Elizabeth "Posy" Simmonds MBE, FRSL is a British newspaper cartoonist, and writer and illustrator of both children's books and graphic novels. She is best known for her long association with The Guardian, for which she drew the series Gemma Bovery (2000) and Tamara Drewe (2005–06), both later published as books. Her style gently satirises the English middle classes and in particular those of a literary bent. Both Gemma Bovery and Tamara Drew feature a "doomed heroine", much in the style of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gothic romantic novel, to which they often allude, but with an ironic, modernist slant.
Emmanuel Larcenet, known as Manu Larcenet is a French cartoonist. He worked with Fluide Glacial magazine from 1995 to 2006 and with Spirou magazine from 1997 to 2004. He has also founded the French publisher Les Rêveurs in 1998. Since 2000, he mostly works with Dargaud.
Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira, more famous under his pen name Léo is a Brazilian comics creator.
Lewis Trondheim is a French cartoonist and one of the founders of the independent publisher L'Association. Both his silent comic La Mouche and Kaput and Zösky have been made into animated cartoons. He explained his choice of pseudonym after the Norwegian city of Trondheim as follows: "As a last name I wanted to use a city's name, but Lewis Bordeaux or Lewis Toulouse didn't sound so good. Then I thought about this city, Trondheim… Maybe someday I will publish a book under my real name, in order to remain anonymous."
Claire Bretécher was a French cartoonist, known particularly for her portrayals of women and gender issues. Her creations included Les Frustrés, and the unimpressed teenager Agrippine.
Philippe Chappuis, better known by his pen name Zep, is a Francophone Swiss cartoonist and illustrator. Zep is mostly known for his comics series Titeuf which he created in 1992, and has become since one of the most popular children's comics in French-speaking countries. He also founded the associated Franco-Belgian comics magazine Tchô!.
François Boucq, is a French comic book artist. He is most famous for his surreal comics revolving around the main character Jérôme Moucherot.
Jean-Marc Rochette is a French painter, illustrator and comics creator.
Christian De Metter is a French comic book artist
Peggy Adam is a French comic book artist and illustrator. She studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Saint-Étienne, at the OCAD University in Toronto, and at the ESI in Angoulême.
Pénélope Bagieu is a French illustrator and comic designer. She is best known for her blog BDs My Quite Fascinating Life and Les Culottées.Les Culottées was compiled and released in English as the graphic novel Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World, which received widespread recognition. She has also created blog BDs California Dreamin' and Joséphine.
Florence Cestac is a French cartoonist and former publisher. She is the first woman to have won the prestigious Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême, in 2000, and was the only one until Rumiko Takahashi in 2019.
Catel Muller, who publishes under the name Catel, is a French comic book artist and illustrator.
Anouk Ricard is a French comic book writer and illustrator.
Oriane Lassus is a French author and cartoonist, as well as an illustrator.
Sandrine Revel is a French bande dessinée illustrator and author of comics.
Lisa Mandel is a French bande dessinée comic book author. With Jul Maroh, Mandel co-founded the Collective of female comics creators against sexism (2015). In 2021, Mandel launched the Exemplaire publishing house, with the subtitle, La maison qui édite autrement.
