Peter Madsen - Biography
Peter Madsen is a drawing artist and illustrator, an author, a filmmaker and a lecturer. He was born on 12 May, 1958 in the city of Århus, Denmark.
As a boy he moved around Denmark with his family until they settled down in the city of Roskilde. Peter Madsen had his first strips published at the age
of fifteen, then chose to study medicine. During the years 1980-84 this was his main occupation until he gave up his studies to be able to
concentrate on directing the animated feature film Valhalla. He is probably best known for the series of comic albums called
Valhalla (1979 - 2009), humourous comics about the gods of Norse mythology. You can read
the history of Valhalla here.
In 1995, Peter Madsen published The Son of Man, a graphic novel of 136 pages in water colour, based on the four Gospels in the New Testament.
In 1999, he contributed to the interpretation of The Book of Job by publishing an expressive graphic story
for adults, The Story of Job. In cooperation with Johannes Møllehave, Peter Madsen wrote
Signe's Christmas (2003), which is a familiy book on Christmas, illustrated by Peter Madsen. In 2004, Peter Madsen published a new interpretation of
Hans Christian Andersen's "The Story of a Mother" in the form of a graphic novel called The Story of a Mother,
based on a tale by Hans Christian Andersen, in water colour and gouache. In 2008, Peter wrote and illustrated The Journey to Jersualem, a book about Easter. In 2009, the first books in the picture book series, Troll Life were published. Troll Life is co-created by Peter Madsen and his wife, Sissel Bøe. So far 17 books have been published. In 2014,
The Fairy Tale Book. 25 classic folktales - fully illustrated with 175 big colour illustrations - was published. In 2016, Peter Madsen illustrated Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The little Mermaid with colourful double page illustrations.
On top of this range of comic albums and graphic novels, Peter Madsen has created a lot of artwork
for book and LP/CD covers, posters and illustrations for magazines and periodicals, newspapers and associations; storyboards,T-shirt designs, stamps and murals.
He has illustrated several books, among them the Troll Story, (Troldehistorien) by Henning Kure (1989, rhymes by Rune Kidde) and the School Bible by Bodil Busk Sørensen
from 2000. Peter Madsen is also a prolific lecturer. Over the last twenty years, he has given more than 1000 lectures. Peter Madsen is married, has 2 children, 2 stepchildren and an increasing number of grandchildren. He lives in Allerød, Denmark.