Jose Luis Munuera was born in 1972 in Southern Spain. After studying Fine Arts at the University of Granada, he became an illustrator of ‘historietas,’ as comics are called in Spain. But the ‘90s would prove to be a difficult period for newspapers and comic book publishing. This pushed Munuera to leave Spain for Angoulême. His hard work convinced Delcourt to publish his first series, with Joann Sfar as the writer, creating the series “Les Potamoks.” When it met with limited success, the dynamic duo pitched their work to another publisher: Dargaud. And thus came into being the adventures of Merlin, the famous magician who was never far from loyal companions Tartine the ogre and Jambon the pig. The series captured quite an audience, and when Sfar no longer had time to produce the scripts, their ongoing adventures were penned by Jean-David Morvan. This would be the beginning of a long artistic partnership between Munuera and Morvan. The science-fiction bestseller by Morvan and Buchet, “Sillage” (Delcourt), was transformed through Munuera’s artwork into a children’s series called Nävis, which ran for six issues. Meanwhile, publisher Dupuis contacted the Morvan-Munuera duo about taking on the reboot of its franchise character: Spirou.
With “Le Signe de la Lune,” co-written with his friend Enrique Bonet, Munuera really came into his own; the series was published as part of the ‘Long Courier’ collection by Dargaud, receiving rave reviews from both critics and the public at large. To this day his productive collaborations continue with the series “Sortilèges” (Dargaud, “Spellbound” Europe Comics), scripted by Jean Dufaux, and “Fraternity,” scripted by Juan Diaz Canales, for which the compilation was released in 2014 by Dargaud. Also in 2014 he started a new creation of his own, taking care of both the art and script: Les Campbell, published by Dupuis and Europe Comics (2017).