Shangri-La

Jérôme Hamon was born in 1977. A graduate of the Rouen Business School and a university in the United States, he began his professional life in New York as a financial analyst. Two years later, convinced that his future was elsewhere, he left the world of finance and traveled around the world for a year. It was during these reflective travels that his imagination ran wild, giving birth to many stories that would haunt him for years. Returning to France, he worked in cinema and video games for a bit before finding himself working at France Télévisions. He took this opportunity to develop some of his ideas into several short film and comic book projects. In 2008, he presented his first comic book scripts in Angoulême and met the cartoonist Marc Van Straceele, with whom he would sign his first project a year later on Yokozuna, a graphic novel about the sumo world in Japan. Following that publication, he began working on Nils with artist Antoine Carrion. Since then, he has written several popular books, including Dreams Factory and Green Class. Mathieu Bablet is a French comic book artist and writer born in 1987 known for his richly detailed visuals and thought-provoking science fiction. A graduate of ENAAI in Chambéry, he was discovered by Ankama Éditions for his debut The Beautiful Death, which launched under the influential Label 619. His works—including Shangri-La, Adrastea, Carbon & Silicon, and The Midnight Order —explore themes of ecological collapse, existentialism, and the human condition, often set in expansive, dystopian worlds. Mathieu Bablet has earned several notable accolades for his work in graphic novels, particularly in science fiction, including The Prix de la BD Fnac France Inter (2021) for Carbon & Silicon, finalist for the Grand Prix de la Critique ACBD (2021), also for Carbon & Silicon, awarded by the Association of Comic Book Critics and Journalists, and the Official Selection at the Angoulême International Comics Festival (2017) for Shangri-La, one of the most prestigious recognitions in European comics. These honors reflect Bablet’s impact on contemporary graphic storytelling, especially through his blend of philosophical depth and visual grandeur.