Lewis Trondheim

Lewis Trondheim (born Laurent Chabosy, French: [ʃabɔzi], on 11 December 1964), is a French cartoonist and one of the founders (in 1990) of the independent publisher L'Association. Both his silent comic La Mouche and Kaput and Zösky have been made into animated cartoons. He explained his choice of pseudonym after the Norwegian city of Trondheim as follows: "As a last name I wanted to use a city's name, but Lewis Bordeaux or Lewis Toulouse didn't sound so good. Then I thought about this city, Trondheim… Maybe someday I will publish a book under my real name, in order to remain anonymous."

Lewis Trondheim was first known as the author of Les formidables aventures de Lapinot (later to be translated to English as The Spiffy Adventures of McConey). He invented the character in the late 1980s as a way to learn cartooning. The result was an initial 500 page graphic novel, Lapinot et les carottes de Patagonie. All the while, he was publishing short stories for the satirical French magazine Psikopat.

After his book Slaloms was awarded what was then called the Alph'Art Coup de coeur (First comic book prize) in 1993, Trondheim was offered to bring his burgeoning series to a major publisher, Dargaud, while he continued churning out more personal books for L'Association and other independent French publishers such as Cornélius. From there onwards, Trondheim began to enjoy a steady rise in popularity.

The following years represented a period of increasing activity, as Trondheim began to work on many different projects. He first created La Mouche ("The Fly") for the Japanese market, and then redrew a French version from scratch, after which the character was adapted as an animated cartoon.

Trondheim's greatest breakthrough after Lapinot is arguably Dungeon (in French, Donjon), an ambitious series which he created with Joann Sfar, and which has enjoyed a fair amount of popular success.

Trondheim's "retirement"

In 2004, after a long and intensive period during which he steadily released new books at a frantic pace, Lewis Trondheim announced he was more or less retiring from the world of comic strips, stating he did not want his passion to become a "job". He did draw and write a few stories within the following year, including a book reflecting on his decision to slow down, though the releases occurred at a much slower pace.

It has long been speculated he used this time partly to create another ambitious work, Le blog de Frantico, which was a comic strip blog published daily on the web for a whole year under the Frantico pseudonym. In interviews and on his web sites, Trondheim alternately admits and denies having written Le blog de Frantico, though another author, Sébastien Lesage eventually stepped up and claimed to be the real author, saying he had asked Trondheim to help him maintain the mystery. To this day however, the true identity of Frantico remains unconfirmed.

Another recent Trondheim occupation is that of editorial director at Delcourt, where he direct Shampooing, a collection of comic books for young readers.

In 2006, Trondheim was awarded the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, arguably the most prestigious award in the field.

• 1994: Award for First Comic Book at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, France
• 1999: 2 nominations for the Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material
• 2000: Best German-language Comic—Import at the Max & Moritz Prizes, Germany

• 2001: nomination for the Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material

• 2002: nomination for the Harvey Award for Best Presentation of Foreign Material

• 2004: Best International Series at the Prix Saint-Michel, Belgium

• 2005: Series Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival

• 2006: Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême, France
• 2007: nominated for the Ignatz Awards for Outstanding Series
• 2008: nominated for the Eisner Awards for Best Short Story and Best Lettering
• 2010: nominated for the Eisner Awards for Best Publication for Kids and Best U.S. Edition of International Material

• 2016: Rudolph-Dirks-Award for Best Scenario for Ralph Azham and Herr Hase