Fred Blanchard

Fred Blanchard is a French illustrator who did his first comics with the publishing company "Éditions Zenda", Ran Corvo, on a Doug Headline's script.

One of Fred Blanchard's first assignments in the early nineties, is a collaboration with Olivier Vatine on Volume 4 of the succesful French graphic series Aquablue. In 1995, they enter the universe of cinematic science fiction and fantasy blockbusters, when they co-create the adaptation of the Star Wars: Heir to the Empire novel, which becomes a comics for American publisher Dark Horse. They pursue their cinema-related endevors by creating designs for Sn@rk, a feature film project of director Marc Caro. In 1991 Fred Blanchard joins Story, a Paris-based animation studio where, as a decorator, he will be led to contribute to the first stages of development of Zaltman Bléros, an ambitious science fiction epic project created and to be directed by French director Luc Besson. As it was, the project stalled before being reborn a few years later as The Fifth Element.

Blanchard then joined director Pascal Morelli to oversee the backgrounds departments on many animated series, including the French and American venture Night Hood (France Animation, 1996) and The Legend of Calamity Jane (Warner Bros. 1997). This collaboration continued with the adaptation of cult graphic novel author Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese, for Ellipse Animation. Subsequently, Fred Blanchard drew almost all the sets of a feature-length animated Corto Maltese film (Ellipse Animation, 2002)? He also worked during this time as an illustrator for various magazines like the movie magazine Starfix : The New Generation.

In 2008 he storyboarded Marc Caro's solo directorial debut, science fiction actioner Dante 01. He continues to this day to work with Marc Caro on the development of various film projects. His influences range from U.S. designers like Geof Darrow, Mentor Huebner or Ron Cobb in the U.S., Miyazaki and Masamune Shirow in Japan, and Moebius or Franquin in Europe.

Fred Blanchard is part of the Friends de ScienceFictionArchives.com and thus supports our mission to preserve iconic Sci-Fi items.