Interview with the artist Servain
As you may have seen, a few days ago, Caurette and Geek-Art presented an exclusive art print, The Banquet. It was available for a limited time, from October 9 to 12, 2026.
It is a visually rich and mouthwatering piece that pays homage to gastronomy, solidarity, and friendship. This splendid work, which will not be reprinted, was created by Servain, the illustrator of Ulysse & Cyrano.
As part of the project, we are pleased to share an interview with the artist today. It was conducted by our partner Thomas Olivri from Geek-Art.
If you are interested, sit back, relax, and pour yourself a nice cup of coffee. Enjoy the read! ☕
Interview conducted by Geek-Art
First of all: could you introduce yourself to our readers? Where are you from, and where are you based today?
Hello! I have been a comic book artist for around thirty years. I am originally from the Hautes-Alpes region, and I now live in Angoulême.
What initially drew you to the world of illustration?
Probably a certain amount of recklessness, along with the desire to be independent, with no one above me and no one below me. I was not really sure what direction to take. I was good at maths, I also loved the mountains, and drawing… After high school, I had to make a choice. On a bit of a whim, I took the entrance exams for several art schools, and I was accepted, among others, into the one in Angoulême (which later became EESI), which I joined because of its comics program. In practice, it mainly allowed me to meet people who would play a foundational role in helping me take my first steps into the publishing world.
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How would you describe your visual universe? How did you find and develop your style, and was there a specific moment when you thought, “This is it, this is how I want to draw”?
I would say I have a realistic style that leans towards semi-realism. I am actually more of a comic book author than an illustrator. I am interested in storytelling: how to convey a story and emotions. It is mostly an instinctive process, a painstaking mille-feuille of sorts that should not look laborious. You have to find solutions so that everything works together. What we call “style” comes naturally, I think, when you manage to let go, and it takes time to learn how to let go.
What is the number one piece of advice you would give someone dreaming of becoming an illustrator?
Draw every day and never stop.
In your opinion, what is the reality of the profession, and what are the most difficult parts?
Not letting yourself be overwhelmed by doubt, and instead turning it into a driving force to always try to do better.
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AI is the hot topic of the moment, both in conversations and across social media. I will be honest: Geek-Art does not support generative AI in art. But it is always very interesting to hear artists’ perspectives on the subject. What are your thoughts?
What is fascinating about the artistic process is making the journey yourself, and putting your own intentions and singularity into it. Drawing something means making an extremely personal decision at every moment, with every line, throughout the entire process. An AI cannot replace that. A machine may generate an image, but it certainly will not generate the one I want.
This becomes even more crucial when you are trying to tell a story—as in comics—because if you want to reach the reader, you need to create exactly the image you need, adjusted down to the millimetre, without compromise, and whose meaning depends on the image that comes before it and the one that follows.
The real tragedy is that this wave of AI is instilling scepticism in people’s minds. But it also shows that there is a desire for authenticity, which can be reassuring. I hope future generations of creators will not give up out of discouragement. To me, that is the main danger.
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What feeds your inspiration and keeps your creativity alive today?
I try to look as much as possible at what is being done in comics and illustration. I watch a lot of TV series and films… Or I just go for a walk. You find so many ideas while walking!
What is your relationship with food and cooking?
I really enjoy cooking (I am the one who cooks at home). Working from home makes it much easier. When I was in high school, I used to have lunch at my grandmother’s house. She was really good at cooking “leftovers”—that is something that has stayed with me!
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Following the success of Ulysse & Cyrano, your comic created with Xavier Dorison and Antoine Cristau, can you tell us how you approached bringing food to life visually? How do you make a dish look appetising on paper?
If you have never tasted the dish you are depicting, it is actually very abstract. So you have to latch onto small details that people can relate to and project themselves into. The way the dishes are drawn also needs to exist within the same visual space as everything else—the characters, trees, walls, etc.—to avoid jarring breaks in style. In Ulysse & Cyrano, we also evoke a lot of the pleasure the characters experience when they cook and eat!
Finally, could you tell us how you approached this particular piece technically—your choice of colours, composition, etc.? Where did the inspiration come from, and what idea did you want to convey?
The idea was precisely to evoke the pleasure that cooking brings through a single image. So I looked for a way to show both the dishes and the diners through different planes and lighting setups, allowing several little scenes to emerge. And to tie all the characters together, I gave them all chef’s hats, which creates a kind of visual rhythm that I hope is both intriguing and amusing.
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