Benoît Sokal

Benoît Sokal was born in Brussels on June 28, 1954. Like many other Belgian artists at the time, Sokal studied under Claude Renard at the Institute of Saint-Luc in Brussels, and he illustrated several realistic stories in the comics publication “Le 9e rêve” (The Ninth Dream). The same year, Sokal began to collaborate with the journal “À suivre,” and he was only 20 years old when he created the series “Canardo” (Casterman), bringing to life an entire animal world. Over the following years, he would go on to illustrate the historical account “Sanguine” (Casterman, 1988) and the detective story “Silence, on tue !” (Nathan). In 1996, he published the realistic tale “Le Vieil homme qui n’écrivait plus” (Casterman), before turning his attention to video games. In 1998 he worked on the graphics for an adventure game titled “L’Amerzone,” and in 2002 he released his second game, “Syberia,” working on every aspect of the title. Invited into the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 2006, as well as the Order of Leopold II in Belgium in 2007, Sokal has continued to be an active creator of both video games and comics in recent years, including sequels of the award-winning “Syberia” (Anuman Interactive).