Jean-Claude Fournier

Born in 1943 in Paris, Jean-Claude Fournier wanted to be either an art teacher like his brother and sister, or a stage actor. He ended up fulfilling an even greater dream: meeting the idol he had admired since the age of six, who took him under his wing, taught him the craft, and eventually passed on to him the torch of a legendary character. That man was Franquin, and the character was none other than Spirou. From 1968 to 1980, Fournier illustrated nine of his adventures, including one set entirely in Brittany, the land dear to his heart. Following artistic differences, he stopped illustrating the stories of the famous bellboy to return to his Bizu. The little forest korrigan was created by Fournier in 1967 in the pages of the weekly Spirou, and continued until 1994. Fournier then embarked on a humorous series written by Zidrou, featuring a cannibalistic family that wreaked havoc in Spirou between 1998 and 2005: Les Crannibales. In the meantime, Fournier found time to help launch Quai des Bulles (1992), Saint-Malo comics festival, and to offer advice and a listening ear—just as Franquin had done for him—to young artists who came to visit him in Brittany, including Lepage and Plessix. In 2008, he reinvented himself with a new series aimed at a more adult audience, written by his friend Lax and titled Les Chevaux du vent (The Horses of the Wind), published by Dupuis. Regarded as a living legend of comic art, Éditions Dupuis dedicated a comic strip biography to him with the 2013 album Dans l'atelier de Fournier (In Fournier's artist studio), illustrated by Joub and Nicoby. In 2024, he published his own memoirs as a comic artist in Ma Vie de Rêves (published by Daniel Maghen), an “autobiographical graphic novel” in which he recounts his years working on Spirou with Franquin, Morris, Tillieux, and Will.