André Franquin

Of all the great names of comic art, Franquin is one of the most beloved, and for good reason: he is considered the quintessential master of drawing. Hergé said of him: “When I see a Franquin, for example, I think to myself: how can anyone compare us? He is a great artist, next to whom I am merely a great illustrator...” When the organizers of the Angoulême International Comics Festival awarded their first Grand Prix in 1974, his name was the obvious choice. 

He made his debut shortly after World War II at the CBA animation studio in Brussels. Working alongside him were unknown artists: Morris, Peyo, Paape… Morris, who was drawing for the weekly magazine Le Moustique, introduced Franquin to his publisher. The publisher then referred Franquin to Jijé, who was already housing the young Will. The four friends set up a shared studio in Waterloo: together, they formed the core of what would later be known as the Marcinelle School.

In 1946, Jijé handed over the magazine's title character, Spirou. He would stay with the character until 1968, along the way creating a whole gallery of legendary figures: the Marsupilami, the Count of Champignac… He took Spirou to new heights of fantasy and imagination, transforming this unassuming bellboy into one of the major figures of the Golden Age of Belgian comics. In 1955, Franquin fell out with Dupuis and signed with “Tintin-de-chez-Le-Lombard-en-face” (the rival magazine across the street). There he created the Modeste & Pompon series based on scripts written by Goscinny, Greg, Tibet and Peyo. When he returned to Dupuis two years later, Franquin handed Modeste & Pompon over to Dino Attanasio. In 1957, he created a character to liven up Le Journal de Spirou—a hero with no job and a name that said it all: Gaston Lagaffe. A hero or rather, as he was later dubbed, an “anti-hero”—not lazy but rather, as the editor- in-chief of Spirou beautifully put it, “effort-saving.”

In the 1970s, Franquin closely followed the rise of the “new wave of French comic art". Sensing just how much it would change the landscape, this generous comic artist, together with his collaborator Yvan Delporte, succeeded in launching a rather unique supplement for a magazine aimed at young readers: Le Trombone Illustré (1977). Over the course of thirty issues, they brought together contributions from Gotlib, Moebius, Tardi, Bilal, Bretécher, Peyo, Roba, Rosinski, Comès, Follet, Alexis, Dany, Hausman, Will and even Jijé! It was there that he created his final masterpiece: Les Idées noires (Dark Thoughts). But his publisher did not understand his approach and would not embrace the shift toward comic art aimed at adults until much later. Franquin then joined Gotlib at the monthly magazine Gotlib had founded two years earlier: Fluide Glacial. A genius of drawing and humor, Franquin never disappointed, dazzling the world of Franco-Belgian comics with his talent from its birth to its maturity.