Benoît Sokal, Belgian comic book artist and creator of the adventure game series Syberia, has died at the age of 66. According to a statement from publisher Microïds, Sokal died on May 28 of an unspecified long-term illness.Sokal began creating comics about an anthropomorphic duck detective named Inspector Canardo for Franco-Belgian magazine À Suivre ("To Be Continued") in the 1970s. He repurposed a storyline from those comics as the basis for his first adventure game Amerzone, published by Microïds, in which a journalist travels to South America to prove the existence of a mysterious species of white bird not seen since 1932. Sokal's next games, Syberia (2002) and Syberia 2 (2004), were his breakthrough, finding success years after adventure games had stopped being regular best-sellers. Starring lawyer Kate Walker, the Syberia games were a journey across Europe and Russia that showed off Sokal's gift for