Born in Grenoble, France, Mathieu Bablet decided he wanted to become an artist and designer by age seven. After high school, he attended the Applied Art School in Chambery, picking up the basics, but it was his proposal for his first graphic novel, A Beautiful Death, that launched him into a career. When noted author Run (aka Guillaume Renard, creator of Label 619) first saw Bablet’s work, his publishing future was all but guaranteed. His second book, Adrastea, reimagined classical Greek mythology with a postapocalyptic twist. With that two-volume project, Bablet honed his skill for what would be his first celebrated opus, Shangri La. An official selection of the Angouleme festival in 2017, and selling nearly 100,000 copies in France alone, he had found his forte: universe-building: deep, speculative fantasy fiction with an expansive scope. After a brief but well-deserved break, he began work on Carbon & Silicon in 2018. Upon its release, it was selected as the Best Graphic Novel of 2020 by FNAC, and nominated for the Best Graphic Novel of 2021 by the Association of Comic Book Critics and Journalists (ACBD). In-between these two blockbuster projects, he began a series of connected short stories with a circle of other artists called Midnight Tales, which were serialized by Anakama. These stories laid the groundwork for the universe that would become The Midnight Order. Currently, Bablet is working on his next magnum opus while co-directing Label 619 studio productions with Run, Florent Maudoux, and Guillaume Singelin. Guillaume Singelin was born in Rennes, France, and grew up inspired to draw by Disney comics and manga. While studying graphic design at EPSAA, he was approached by writer Antoine Ozanam (KLAW, Temudjin) to work on a retelling of the David and Goliath story in King David, revised to be a contemporary mafia tale. But comics weren’t what he originally imagined doing, so he joined the animation team at Ankama to work on the feature film MUTAFUKAZ, based on the Label 619 comic series by Label founder Run. It was during this time Singelin dreamed up The Grocery, a madcap combination of cartoonish characters in a gritty urban setting much like The Wire. That unique recipe found fans, and he soon began contributing more and more work to the growing portfolio of Label 619, including stories for Doggybags, Midnight Tales, and the MFKZ spinoff Loba Loca. His first full-length graphic novel to be published in English was the dense postwar drama PTSD, which not only refined his unique balance of cartoony characters in gritty situations but cemented his reputation for thoughtful and multilayered storytelling. His manga-inspired character designs pop out of realistically rendered environments to come to life. From that experience and exposure, he was tapped by DC to create a handful of Batman backup stories (in Urban Legends and DC Vampires). Aside from comics, he continues to work in other fields, including video games, producing illustration, and character design for titles such as the celebrated multi-platform game Citizen Sleeper.
