Born on 16 January 1960, Frédéric Boilet learned technical drawing before looking for a pathway into more artistic concepts. His first attempts appeared in Okapi, between 1982 and 1985, where he proved to be as good a cartoonist as he was a scriptwriter.
He then illustrated “Les Veines de l’Occident”, a historical epic by René Durant for Vecu magazine and placed a few strips in À Suivre, signed “Kafka”.
From 1989 to 1991, he taught scriptwriting at the Narrative Arts Studio in Angoulême and collated all of his students” best pieces of work in the anthology “Les Enfants du Nil”, using the example of the famous “Neuvième rêve” by trainee cartoonists at Atelier R in Brussels. Boilet then organised a flow of artistic exchanges between the college in Angoulême and the corresponding institution in Osaka, Japan, given concrete expression by a piece of work produced by graphic artists from both institutions entitled “Kôryû”.
Specialist in “mangas”, he illustrated a Japanese erotic comic strip collection for Humanoïdes Associés.
His interest in Japanese society was to be found in the albums which he drew for Casterman based on scripts by his friend Benoît Peeters: “Love Hotel” (1993), “Tokyo est mon jardin” (1997) and “Imperial Hotel”. The two friends contributed a peculiar story (“Demi- tour”) to the prestigious Aire Libre collection, with a realism which was very close to personal experience with the background of election day in France.
