Fabrice Giger

Fabrice A Giger (born January 7, 1965 in Geneva, Switzerland) is a book publisher and film & TV producer.^[1] The son of Swiss painter José Giger, he is well known for publishing hundreds of comic books / graphic novels from such acclaimed authors as Alexandro Jodorowsky, Mœbius, Enki Bilal and John Cassaday.

In 1988, at the age of 23 and shortly after he had established his own Swiss founding publishing house fr:Alpen Publishers (for traditional, classic "bandes dessinées" publications aimed at a younger public, including among others a couple of outings in Jean "Mœbius" Giraud's Blueberry comic series), convinced that comic book artists and writers have an artistic and commercial potential far beyond the traditional comic book industry, he bought the venerable Paris, France publishing house Les Humanoïdes Associés as well as its more mature catalog and brands, such as Métal Hurlant. In less than two decades, he turned it into a multimedia group, involved not only in comic book publishing, but also in CGI animation, digital effects, internet content and software development.^[2] In the process he decided to abandon his own founding publishing house, which became defunct in 1994 – after unsuccessful efforts to integrate its too disparate catalog into that of Humanoïdes pursuant the move of Alpen's seat from Switzerland to Paris – and focused all his energy on Humanoïdes.

In 1995, he co-founded the CGI animation studio, Sparx*, with branches in France and in Vietnam, which went on to produce many critically acclaimed and awarded shows, such as Rolie Polie Olie for which Giger won an Emmy Award in 2000 as executive producer.^[3]

In 1998, in Los Angeles, he founded Humanoids, the American counterpart of Les Humanoïdes Associés.^[4]

In the years 1999-2000, he partnered with directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott and Renny Harlin to launch a website featuring original content based on Humanoids and Les Humanoïdes Associés titles. The respective catalogs have been a constant source of inspiration for filmmakers and the movie industry in general since the 1970s,^[5] and thus Giger sought to create a digital content platform to combine the talents from these different mediums. Despite producing hours of material, the site never took off due to the unfortunate timing of the bursting of the Internet bubble.^[6]

Back to his publishing roots and taking advantage of the presence of Les Humanoïdes Associés in Europe and Humanoids in the US, Giger re-launched the magazine Métal Hurlant for a 14-issue run (2002 - 2004) that was published in several different languages and released around the world.^[7]

Again, major talents emerged from this renaissance period, such as the Ukrainian creator Igor Baranko, the artist Corentin Rouge, or even distinctively creative universes such as Lucha Libre, or The Zombies that Ate the World. At the same time, many first class authors, such as artist José Ladrönn and writer Geoff Johns, added new properties to the Les Humanoïdes Associés and Humanoids catalogs.

At the end of 2004, following a clash with his then partners, Giger stepped down from all his duties and took a sabbatical of several years, including one spent in Pondicherry, India, close to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

In 2008, he was called back to duty for the restructuring of Les Humanoïdes Associés, and he thus resumed his career as the group’s publisher, which subsequently, in 2010, included a successful relaunch of publishing activities in the English language under the Humanoids banner.^[8][9][10]

Considering that his job has evolved into the global development and management of Intellectual Properties, Giger has since strived to bring the catalogs further into the digital age and give them even more international visibility. For example, in 2013, Les Humanoïdes Associés/Humanoids is still the record holder for having the best sales of a European graphic novel in Japan.^[11]

While continuing to develop and publish new books, such as District 14 (French title Cité 14), winner of the Best Series of the Year at the 2012 Angoulême International Comics Festival,^[12] Giger continues his work on the audiovisual adaptation of books he has previously published. With his partner, Pierre Spengler, he exec-produced the low-budget TV series Métal Hurlant Chronicles that went on air in October 2012.^[13][14] In 2013, Giger decided to relocate the headquarters of his publishing house from Paris to Los Angeles, which reversed the hitherto existing situation by Paris now becoming a scaled-down subsidiary of the American mother company. As stated on the company's official website, the move reflected Giger's ambitions to restructure the company into a "major audiovisual" company, by making "deals with various international and Los Angeles-based partners", which led to the creation of the Humanoids Production Division in 2015.

References

External links

• Humanoids website
• Les Humanoïdes Associés website