Didier Conrad

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Didier Conrad 2013

Didier Conrad (born May 6, 1959 in Marseille ) is a French-Swiss comic artist. He became known in the early 1980s for his series Heroes without Scruples . From volume 35, Conrad took over the Asterix series together with author Jean-Yves Ferri . He is Uderzo's successor . He is married to comic and children's book author Sophie Commenge (aka Wilbur) and lives in Austin , Texas .

biography

Conrad's parents come from Switzerland, his mother from Vevey , his father from Neuchâtel . Conrad is also a Swiss citizen, but has rarely visited Switzerland.

At the age of 14 Conrad managed to publish for the first time in the renowned Spirou magazine . The platform for this was provided by the Carte blanche rubric , which was primarily initiated to present young talents, among whom Conrad stood out as the youngest up-and-coming draftsman to date. From 1978 to 1979 followed with Jason Conrads first real series at Spirou . Two long stories based on scenarios by Mythic appeared in editions 2110-2119 and 2134-2143, but they were never (as of November 2013) collected in French albums and that Conrad later said he would have better publish them under a pseudonym should leave.

Conrad and Yann from 1979

While Conrad published a total of four contributions of two pages in length in the carte blanche from 1974 to 1975, Yann , who was five years older than him , was able to establish himself there five times at the same time, but did not follow up on it as immediately as Conrad had succeeded. However, Yann's mother noticed that both young artists are from Marseille and arranged a first meeting.

In fact, this meeting was followed by the first smaller joint works in 1979 in the Journal de Spirou , and in 1980 the first two albums by Heroes without Scruples (original title: Les Innommables ) were printed there in continuation. Despite the support of Franquin , the series could not stay in the magazine for long because of its macabre humor, which also did not skip sex. The planned third story of Cloaque did not get permission to reprint and did not appear until 1997, heavily revised, as it had to be adapted to the new storyline. 1982 saw the beginning of Aventure en jaune , the first story with the Chinese agent Alix, which, however, was broken off in the middle of the story. Les Innommables moved from Dupuis to the small publisher Temps Futurs, to Glénat and finally to Dargaud , where it was expanded to include eleven more albums and a spin-off series ( Tigresse Blanche on the earlier adventures of Alix). The series was also published in German from 2001 to 2003 by Carlsen Verlag and from 2009 to 2011 by Finix Comics , the offshoot under the title The White Tigerin from 2008 to 2011 by Schreiber & Leser .

As early as the 1980s, Franquin was planning a first cartoon series about his character Marsupilamis . In addition to Franquin himself and the then established artists Delporte , Wasterlain and Will , the young talents Conrad and Yann were also involved in the production. But Franquin struggled to finance the television production, and so the project petered out.

After being kicked out of Spirou , the two published the first adventure of the Bob Marone series in the magazine Circus from 1983 to 1984 . It is a parody of the trivial adventure novel series Bob Morane , which was also adapted as a comic . Two albums of this title were initially released by Glénat in 1984 and '85, which were also published in German in 1986 by Carlsen Verlag. From 2003 to 2005 the series was reactivated for seven short episodes of mostly six pages in the magazine Fluide Glacial , in part under the title Bob et Bill . The new adventures were released as an album by Dargaud in 2013, together with an eighth previously unreleased.

For child-friendly comics, Conrad and Yann used the collective pseudonym Pearce . First, under the supervision of Morris , they created two moderately successful albums in the Lucky Kid series in 1995 and 1997 , but they had more success (a total of six albums) when they built a similar concept with Cotton Kid , without leaning on a well-known name as an offshoot. Jean Léturgie co-wrote both series . They were both published completely in German, Lucky Kid at Ehapa , which partially integrated the series into the main series Lucky Luke , Cotton Kid first at Carlsen, then at Salleck Publications .

Conrad and Wilbur from 1982

Conrad met his future wife in 1982 in Marseille. Under the pseudonym Lucie she colored the first two albums Bob Marone , before she regularly acted as the author of Conrad's works from 1985. The first comic together was L'Avatar , followed by Tatum in 1990 , both works were signed by Wilbur under their real name, Sophie Commenge. From L'avatar only the first of two planned parts, Conrad appeared processed the story again completely in 1990 under the name Le Piège malais .

In 1987 the couple had a daughter and in 1991 a son. In 1991 the first album of the Donito series was also released . Four more parts were published by Dupuis by 1996, the first three stories were published in German by Carlsen from 1993 to 1994. Donito was Conrad's first comic aimed at a child audience. He is officially responsible here as an author and draftsman. In fact, he admitted in an interview with Matthias Hofmann, the stories were a pure creation by Wilbur, who at the time did not want to expose herself to the stress of working with the publisher as a young mother. So she acted here as her husband's ghostwriter . The drafting as a script for the implementation as a comic was done by Conrad. In the case of the White Tigers , the scenario of the first two albums comes from Yann, that of parts 4 to 7 without a doubt from Wilbur. The third episode, however, lists Conrad as the sole responsible creator in both the French and German editions. However, this is sometimes disputed, so there is a possibility that the procedure here was similar to that of Donito .

In 1996 the family moved to Los Angeles because Conrad accepted a job as a “visual developer” for the animated film The Way to El Dorado for 15 months . Even after working for DreamWorks, the family stayed in California. Further series of the duo Wilbur - Conrad is the series Raj , which is completed in four albums (originally from 2007 to 2011 by Dargaud, in German the first two parts were published in 2010 by Carlsen, the rest in 2017 by Finix) and Marsu Kids , currently with two albums Originally published by Marsu Productions from 2011 and in German by Splitter - Imprint Toonfish from 2012 . With the latter series, which is designed for three albums corresponding to three children of Marsupilamis, Conrad also returned again to Spirou magazine. Both parts were started there in 2012, and thus partly after the album was released, in sequels.

Conrad and other authors from 2012

Together with Jerry Frissen, Conrad is working on the Duc Béton series , as was previously the case with Bob Marone, a parody of a series of trivial novels, specifically the US series Doc Savage . And just like the last Marone stories, the series will be pre-published in the Fluide Glacial magazine . An album for the series was also released in August 2012.

Asterix bei den Picts , the first Asterix volume by the new Conrad and Ferri team, was released on October 24, 2013. During the implementation, Uderzo gave the new team extensive freedom, but was involved in an observing position. He also made a few corrections to Conrad's pencil drawings, mainly on the first few pages.

Bibliography (works published in German)

Individual evidence

Entries in Bedetheque (French) (bt):

  1. ↑ Conrad . Retrieved July 31, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b Bob Marone . Retrieved October 11, 2013.
  3. ↑ Pearce . Retrieved October 11, 2013.
  4. ↑ a b Wilbur . Retrieved October 13, 2013.
  5. ↑ Sophie Commenge . Retrieved October 12, 2013.
  6. ↑ Tigresse Blanche . Retrieved October 12, 2013.
  7. ^ Duc Béton . Retrieved October 12, 2013.

Entries on BD oublieés (French) (Bo):

  1. ↑ a b c Conrad in Spirou . Retrieved July 31, 2013.
  2. ↑ Yann in Spirou . Retrieved August 7, 2013.
  3. ^ Conrad in the circus . Retrieved October 11, 2013.
  4. ^ Conrad in the Fluide Glacial . Retrieved October 11, 2013.

Entries in the German Comic Guide (CG):

  1. ^ Heroes without scruples at Carlsen Comics and Finix Comics as well as The White Tigress . Retrieved August 7, 2013
  2. ↑ Bob Marone . Retrieved October 11, 2013.
  3. ↑ Lucky Kid as a separate title and album 73 and 82 of the main series at Ehapa. Retrieved October 11, 2013.
  4. ^ Cotton Kid by Carlsen Verlag and Salleck Publications . Retrieved October 11, 2013.

Other:

  1. ↑ a b c Biography on Finix Comics website.Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  2. ↑ Horst Berner: Asterix at the Picts. Ferri & Conrad are not stingy with Scottish charms In: Alfonz - Der Comicreporter 4/2013, Edition Alfons , Verlag Volker Hamann, Barmstedt October 2013, pp. 6–11.
  3. ^ A b c d e Matthias Hofmann: Two French in Los Angeles. Wilbur and Didier Conrad and the tots of Marsupilamis (Interview) In: Alfonz - Der Comicreporter 1/2012, Edition Alfons, Verlag Volker Hamann, Barmstedt July 2012, pp. 22-25.
  4. ↑ Martin Zips: How Asterix is ​​made. Pencil, red pen and Japanese ink: comic artist Didier Conrad explains his work on an Asterix album exclusively for SZ. In: Culture. Süddeutsche Zeitung , August 14, 2019, accessed on October 20, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b Stefan Brändle: Asterix becomes half Swiss. Switzerland on Sunday , October 12, 2013, accessed on October 14, 2013 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Oriol spelling: A duo without scruples. Yanns & Conrads debut in SPIROU magazine . In: Heroes Without Scruples - Code Name Triple Zero . Finix-Comics, Hademar 2011, pp. 3–12.
  7. ↑ Biography of Yann on the Finix Comics website.Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  8. ↑ a b Peter Nover: What good are the kids? The miraculous multiplication of the children's offshoots by Spirou, Lucky Luke, Marsupilami & Co. In: Alfonz - Der Comicreporter 1/2012, Edition Alfons, Verlag Volker Hamann, Barmstedt July 2012, p. 19.

Remarks

  1. ↑ The publication in the magazine is not shown on BD oublieés, probably because the page has not been updated that far. But she is mentioned by Conrad himself in the given interview.
  2. ↑ Contribution to an anthology with homages
  3. ↑ The second album by Lucky Kid integrated into the main series

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Conrad, Didier
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French-Swiss comic artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Marseille