Mentored by renowned cartoonists André Franquin (1924—1997) and Yvan Delporte (1928—2007), Jannin debuted in his early twenties with a few comic strips for a prolific Vulcain Records magazine and its supplemental publication, Le Trombone illustré — most notably, [url=https://discogs.com/artist/4236274]Germain et nous…[/url] ("Germain and us") co-authored with Fred's ex-classmate and close friend Thierry Culliford, and Les Démêlés d'Arnest Ringard et d'Augraphie ("Misadventures of Arnest Ringard and Augraphie"). Since 1978, Fred has been regularly working with Gilles Dal, starting with their "Malaise Vagal" series published in Vulcain Records magazine. He also collaborated with scriptwriter Jean-Claude De La Royère on several occasions, including the Rockman comics that debuted in the Belgian music magazine [url=https://discogs.com/label/95480]More!![/url] and a two-volume [url=https://discogs.com/release/8045599]Jimmy Laventure[/url] comics book in the mid-1980s. Around the same time, Jannin also worked with Serge Honorez on a comic strip, Nougat le Rat (an anagram of "L'Argonaute," a French youth pop science magazine that commissioned the project).

Jannin's early musical career was inseparable from comics, as his earliest and arguably most renowned group, The Bowling Balls, came together in August 1976 as a plot element in "Germain et nous" comic strip — a fictional favorite band of the main protagonist Germain and his teenage friends. Subsequently, Fred and his co-author, Thierry Culliford, decided to evolve Bowling Balls as a separate hoax. They invited rock journalist [url=https://discogs.com/artist/3958826]Bert Bertrand[/url], son of Yvan Delporte (Fred's mentor and close co-author of Thierry's father, legendary cartoonist Peyo), alongside another mutual friend, to join the fictional ensemble as four "Ball brothers." After creating abundant bogus ephemera for the non-existent satirical band, including the November 1978 interview with En Attendant music magazine, the Balls decided to record a few songs as the next step in their increasingly more complex mystification. Initially planned as a flexi-disc insert with Vulcain Records but scrapped due to insufficient budget, the band's debut 7" single, God Save The Night Fever, was released by Vulcain Records on 1 April 1979. The Bowling Balls signed a contract with Vulcain Records the following year, producing three more seven-inches between April 1980 and September 1981. Sadly, the aspiring group came to an abrupt and tragic end after Bert's suicide in February 1983.

In 1985, Jannin established the Zinno duo with a prolific Belgian TV personality, Hugh Jempy, né Jean-Pierre Hautier. Their debut single, What's Your Name? — a quirky synthpop cover of Monty Norman's classic Dr. No's "James Bond" theme — became an instant European radio-play hit, released in over thirty countries. (In his 2015 interview, Fred Jannin recalled a lack of enthusiasm with Zinno, despite the debut single's breakthrough success, and how he struggled with endless hours of waiting backstage at yet another German and French television show to appear for merely three minutes with a backing track performance.)