Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to a Slovak mother and a Bosnian father who had been Josip Broz Tito's tailor, he moved to Paris at the age of 9.[1] At age 14, he metRené Goscinny and with his encouragement applied his talent to comics. He produced work for Goscinny's comics magazine Pilote in the 1970s, publishing his first story, Le Bol Maudit, in 1972.
In 1975, Bilal began working with script writer Pierre Christin on a series of dark and surreal tales, resulting in the body of work titled Légendes d'Aujourd'hui.
He is best known for the Nikopol trilogy (La Foire aux Immortels, La Femme Piège and Froid Équateur), which took more than a decade to complete. Bilal wrote the script and did the artwork. The final chapter, Froid Équateur, was chosen book of the year by the magazine Lire and is acknowledged by the inventor of chess boxing,Iepe Rubingh as the inspiration for the sport.
Bilal's most recent publication is Quatre? (2007), the last book in the Hatzfeld tetralogy, which deals with the breakup of Yugoslavia from a future viewpoint.
His cinematic career has recently been revived with the expensive Immortel (Ad Vitam) which is his first attempt to adapt his books to the screen.
On May 13, 2008 a video game based on the Nikopol trilogy was announced entitled Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals.
A short clip from his film Immortal:
