'Le Secret des Hommes-Chiens' (1995).
Yves H. is a Belgian comic writer. He started out as a solo artist with 'Le Secret des Hommes-Chiens' (1995), before becoming a scriptwriter for his father Hermann. Together, they made various one-shot graphic novels, as well as longer series like the medieval 'Bois-Maury' saga (2001-2012), the pirate series 'Le Diable des Septs Mers' (2008-2009), the western comic 'Duke' (2017-2013) and the Roman legionary two-parter 'Brigantus' (2023-2025).
Early life and career
Yves Huppen was born in 1967 in Brussels as the son of comic artist Hermann. His mother Adeline worked at the National Bank of Belgium. After dragging himself through primary and secondary school, Yves studied film at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion at the University of Louvain-La-Neuve. However, he soon realized that raising the necessary funds for movies is a daunting challenge in Belgium. He completed his ten-month military service in Werl, Germany. Back in civilian life, the only branch he could find work in was the TV industry, and Huppen didn't want to become a studio director. To earn a living, he used his video skills to film weddings, create advertising montages, and take on all sorts of other commissions.
A final attempt to make a living as a filmmaker came to be after meeting Octavian Bellu, head coach of the Romanian women's Olympic team. He received permission to film at the Romanian gymnasts' training center, a unique opportunity since no one had even been allowed to film within the center's walls during the Ceausescu dictatorship (1965-1989). While some TV stations showed interest in the project, it wasn't picked up. In the end, it was a rude awakening for the young filmmaker, who decided to seek his luck in another field. And so, he followed in his father's footsteps and became a comic creator. As a child, Yves Huppen's favorite comic series was Peyo's 'The Smurfs'. He once drew a 600-page unpublished story starring these blue gnomes.
'Le Secret des Hommes-Chiens' (1995).
Le Secret des Hommes-Chiens
In 1995, Yves Huppen wrote and drew the comic 'Le Secret des Hommes-Chiens', published by Dupuis. In this semi-caricatural comic, the main characters are members of an eccentric "freak show" circus. There is a bearded lady, a dwarf, a legless man, conjoined twins (one on top of the other), an elephant man, a one-legged woman (a head on one leg), and other even more outlandish oddities. Added to the list are a lost one-man band, murderous children, a crazy countess, and a narrow-minded inspector. Interviewed by BD Zoom (22 September 2000), Yves' father Hermann revealed that the majority of the comic book was made by his son, but that he helped him out with the inking, coloring and lettering.
Despite the colorful cast of characters and the name of his father attached to it, the comic barely sold. Another hard blow for Yves Huppen, who instead then to go on another journey to Romania. During his year-long stay in Bucharest, he met his future wife Iocasta, a haiku and poetry writer. After their wedding, the couple returned to Belgium and settled in Brussels.
'Bois-Maury' (the album 'Dulle Griet') and 'Bernard Prince' ('Menace Sur Le Fleuve').
Return to comics
Back in Belgium, Yves H. returned to the field of comics, and began a steady collaboration with his father, this time only as a scriptwriter. During the 21st century, basically all the stand-alone graphic novels by Hermann were a father-son project. In an interview, Hermann dismissed the criticism of fatherly nepotism by pointing at the quantity of their productions. If he had really felt his son's scripts were bad, he would have ended their collaboration a long time ago. Hermann respected his son's scripts and only made alterations in terms of page lay-out. Rather than brainstorm together, he simply illustrated each page one by one, only finding out where the narrative was heading while drawing the story. Hermann only discussed the plot if he noticed a mistake or a plot development that seemed illogical.
Besides the graphic novels, the Huppens also created new installments of Hermann's classic series. Between 2001 and 2012, Yves H. scripted the second story cycle of the 'Bois-Maury' saga, following the descendants of the main character from the original series, 'Les Tours de Bois-Maury' (1984-1994). In 2010, Yves H. wrote a new adventure of 'Bernard Prince', the classic comic created during the 1960s by Hermann and scriptwriter Greg for Tintin magazine. In this one-time revival album, 'Menace Sur Le Fleuve' (Le Lombard, 2010), several of the series' early characters returned as fan service.
'Liens de Sang' and 'The Girl From Ipanema'.
Graphic novels with Hermann
The first collaboration between Yves and Hermann Huppen as a writer-artist team was 'Liens de Sang' ("Blood Ties", Le Lombard, 2000), a remarkable story about patricide and organized crime, set in a large US city between the 1930s and 1950s. Some characters are modelled after Hollywood actors, like Josh (Marlon Brando), Vandenbosch (James Woods), Gladys (Rita Hayworth), Beaumont (Humphrey Bogart), Sam (James Dean) and the Boss (Orson Welles). The book was also translated into Dutch and English.
'Manhattan Beach 1957' (Le Lombard, 2002) follows a man traumatized by the death of his beloved girlfriend Daisy in 1957, and who is still lost and depressed two decades later. The book was also translated into English. With 'Zhong Guo' (Dupuis Aire Libre, 2003), father and son made a spy story with science fiction elements. The Chinese secret service abducts a Chinese-American CIA agent, while the CIA retaliates by putting agent Ditto on the case. However, Ditto realizes he is merely used as a disposable pawn and plots revenge. In 'The Girl From Ipanema' (Le Lombard, 2005), two girlfriends arrive in Hollywood hoping for a film career, but are pulled into an abyss of sheer terror. This book was also translated into English.
'Sur Les Traces de Dracula: Transylvania' and 'Le Diable des Sept Mers'.
Hermann and Yves H. delved into more horror with 'Sur Les Traces de Dracula: Vlad L'Empaleur' (Casterman, 2006), a biopic about Romanian Count Vlad Tepes, AKA Vlad II Drakul. Published in three volumes, Hermann provided the artwork for part one, the other installments were drawn by, respectively, Séra and Dany. The trilogy was translated into Dutch, Danish and Serbian. Hermann & son continued on their historical route with the piracy two-parter 'Le Diable des Septs Mers' ("The Devil of the Seven Seas", Dupuis Aire Libre, 2008-2009), in which Harriet and her friend Conrad go on a treasure hunt to buy back her late father's plantation, facing the vicious buccaneer Robert Murdoch. 'Une Nuit de Pleine Lune' (Glénat Grand Format, 2011) is a dark thriller about a bunch of youngsters who try to rob a retired couple in the countryside, but find themselves in an unforeseen mess. The story was later adapted into the film 'The Owners' (2020), directed by Julius Berg.
With 'Retour au Congo' (Glénat Caractère, 2013), Hermann and Yves H. made an unofficial sequel to Hergé's controversial album 'Tintin Au Congo'. The protagonist, Rémy Georget (an anagram of Hergé's real name Georges Rémi) travels back to Congo, where he meets a lot of Tintin-esque characters and has a series of farcical adventures. In 'Station 16' (Le Lombard, 2014), the action is set in Novaya Zemlya, where Soviet nuclear tests were held in the 1950s and 1960s. The plot mixes science fiction with horror and was inspired by a documentary on Arte about Novaya Zemlya, where most of the activities during the Cold War were top secret and in 1961 the biggest nuclear bomb, the "Tsar Bomba", was brought to ignition. 'Sans Pardon' (Le Lombard, 2015) marked Hermann's return to westerns. A young boy, Buck Carter, witnesses his entire family being murdered and becomes victim of rape. He starts killing the culprits, but during his vengeful quest he makes a chilling discovery. Both 'Station 16' and 'Sans Pardon' were also translated into Polish.
'Old Pa Anderson' and 'Duke'.
Hermann owned a few ancient photos depicting lynchings of African-Americans in the US South, which inspired his graphic novel, 'Old Pa Anderson' (Le Lombard, 2016), in which a white policeman rapes and murders a black girl. Old Pa goes searching for his missing daughter in racially segregated Mississippi, because he wants to find out the truth, despite the dangers. The same year, Hermann and Yves H. also made 'Le Passeur' (Dupuis Aire Libre, 2016), about a young couple in a desolated world who search for a better life on the basis of a travel folder they found on a corpse.
A more extensive collaboration between father and son was 'Duke' (Le Lombard, 2017-2023), a seven-volume western series set in Ogden, Colorado, and the South West of the US during the 1860s. The title character is a sharpshooter who hates guns, but since it's the only talent he has, he accepts a job as deputy sheriff. After 'Duke', the team made another historical series, the two-volume 'Brigantus' (Le Lombard, 2023-2025), set in Scotland during the Roman invasion of Britannia. Melonius Brigantus is a Roman legionnaire who is scarred by all the bloodshed he was forced to witness during his life. At the same time, other soldiers don't respect him much either, since he isn't a true Roman, but had a mother who was a "barbarian" Pict.
Yves H. also scripted his father's final comic, 'Cartagena', about the drug cartels in the fictional Mexican city of Cartagena. The book was released by Le Lombard on 30 April 2026, little over a months after the death of Hermann at age 87.
Legacy of Hermann
Besides his father's main collaborator, Yves H. is also the maintainer of the website devoted to his father's work, www.hermannhuppen.com. Interviewed by Jean-Michel Lemaire and Yannick Bonnant in On a Marché Sur La Bulle issue #17 (October 2008), Hermann said that the original site owner became "unapproachable after meeting the woman of his life", so Yves took over the task. The website offers a thorough overview of the life and work of Hermann Huppen, including information about rarities and special releases.
'Brigantus' and 'Cartagena'.