Lewis Trondheim was first known as the author of Les formidables aventures de Lapinot. 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 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 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, an ambitious series which he created with Joann Sfar, and which has enjoyed a fair amount of popular success. In 1993, he married Brigitte Findakly, a comic colorist and screenwriter.
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 manages 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.
Two volumes of McConey have been published in English by Fantagraphics in editions close to the original. In 2018 Dargaud also began releasing English translations with the title The Marvelous Adventures of McConey under the Europe Comics label. As of April 2018 three volumes have been published. Fantagraphics has additionally published a range of shorter pieces by Trondheim in the comic The Nimrod. NBM has published Dungeon, both in comic book and graphic novel formats, as well as Little Nothings, a collection of autobiographical one-page vignettes. English versions of A.L.I.E.E.N. and Le Roi Catastrophe have been published by First Second.
