Brunettes: A selection of important/influential past and present belgian and french drawers/book artists

Bande Dessinnée (french word as it's mostly a part of the french-speaking cultural landscape is called BD in short) is historically the first example of sequential narration and became popular at the end of the 19th century, later in the 20th century, comic-books in the US and manga in Japan joined the big family of the popular art of sequential narration. A few things to know about BD: it was in the beginning mostly aimed at kids and was therefore either silly funnies or wholesome adventure stories, BD for "mature readers" as opposed to "family reading" started gaining market shares at the beginning fo the 60's. I reckon the ratio today in France and Belgium must be 60/40 in favor of family in terms of sales figures but preobably the other way around in terms of money earned because BD for mature readers is usually sold at higher prices (usually vary from 5€ up to 15€). BD is usually presented in "albums": 48-page A4 paper size stories under a hardback cover, it's basically the format that's been used in the US for what is called "graphic novels" there (it can be noted that the 48-page standard was introduced by editors sometimes in the 70's to reduce paper and printing costs, before that "BD albums" usually had 64 pages). Stories are usually of three sorts, the most common: one-page stories (usually the format for funnies, the same as jokes you would tell with the first panels serving as set-up and the last or two last ones delivering the catch), one-shot stories of 48 pages or episodes of 48 pages in a running saga. It is traditional for writers and drawers to use pseudonyms and it is not uncommon to have artists who both write and draw. The main editors are either belgian or french: Dupuis, Dargaud, Lombard, Glénat, Delcourt and many others. BD Albums are not released at recurrent periods as is the case for manga and comics who are mostly weekly and/or monthly. "Spirou" is the last of the weekly BD magazines and, only telling for self-indulgence, is edited and printed in the town where I live, who is also considered as one of the historical centers of BD history.
I hope these infos were useful and you can enjoy the list I proposed, though it is only a very short selection of past and present artists.