André Franquin

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André Franquin (1983)
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André Franquin [ ɑ̃nˈdʁe fʁɒŋˈkɛ̃ ] (born January 3, 1924 in Etterbeek , Brussels , † January 5, 1997 in Nice ) was a French-speaking Belgian draftsman and author. He became known through series such as Spirou and Fantasio , Mausi and Paul , Gaston and Black Thoughts and as the creator of Marsupilamis . André Franquin applies in addition to Hergé as the main character defining comic - artist of Europe and next to Hergé and René Goscinny as one of the most successful representatives of the French-Belgian comics . His expressive drawing style is characterized by sweeping lines, lively figures and a wealth of details. The humor often has anarchic features.

education

After a year of training at the Ecole Saint-Luc in Saint-Gilles, Franquin worked as an animator in the CBA studio. During this work he got to know fellow comic artists like Morris , Peyo , René Follet and Eddy Paape . From 1946 he worked for the Dupuis publishing house , which published the comic magazine Spirou . Franquin first designed the cover of the Dupuis magazine “Le Moustique” and found a fatherly friend in Jijé (Joseph Gillain), the publisher's most important draftsman at the time, who took him under his wing.

Spirou and Fantasio

Franquin soon took over the title series for Journal de Spirou. This was created in 1938 by Rob-Vel (Robert Velter) and briefly continued in 1940 and from 1943 by Jijé, who added the figure Fantasio. Under Franquin, the series Spirou and Fantasio developed into one of the great comic classics and received its face that is still valid today: While his early episodes from the 1940s still very much resembled those of his teacher Jijé, Franquin dared to create album lengths from 1950 Adventures that showed the two main characters in a much more closed universe. There they had to deal with a multitude of recurring supporting characters, including the eccentric Count von Rummelsdorf, the devious Zantafio, the megalomaniac cyclotrope and the emancipated Steffani.

The fantasy creature Marsupilami and the creative chaot Gaston Lagaffe , who was an office messenger and also acted independently of Spirou from the start, became the two most important characters of Franquins , which is why he soon got his own series, which soon got nothing with the Spirou and Fantasio universe had to do. The Marsupilami made its first appearance in Spirou on January 31, 1952, and Gaston made its debut on February 28, 1957.

Franquin married in 1950; the marriage lasted until the artist's death. With his wife Liliane - caricatured in many Spirou adventures as well as a Gaston gag - he had a daughter named Isabelle, who was born in 1957 nine days before Gaston's first appearance .

After a dispute with the Spirou publisher Dupuis, Franquin undertook to draw a series for the rival magazine Tintin . From 1955 to 1959, the one-page series about Mausi and Paul ( Modeste et Pompon ) were created, which, in addition to their comedy, are best known today for their sophisticated fifties aesthetics, but were less well received by critics and audiences than his other series. After all, the series was successful enough to be continued by other illustrators such as Dino Attanasio . Franquin's dispute with Dupuis, however, was soon resolved, and he was faced with the dilemma that he was now under contract with two publishers.

Gaston

From the end of 1957, Gaston , who had previously only appeared in the form of individual illustrations, received its own gag half-page in the magazine. Gaston had a guest appearance in the Spirou story “La Foire Aux Gangster” (“Meeting point fairground”). Another, less well-known Franquin creation was Der kleine Nicki ( Le petit Noël; not to be confused with Der kleine Nick ) at the end of 1957 , which had a few shorter solo adventures, performed in Marsupilami gags, and also appeared in picture book form. Noël and the Elaoin had another adventure only in 1986. Together with Will, Franquin created the children's book “Pierre's Frohe Ostern”, which was based on the short comic “Happy Easter, my little Noël”.

From 1957 Franquin had to oversee three series, designed the title page and also illustrated other magazine contents. Despite the support of assistants including background artist Jidéhem and copywriter Greg, he collapsed in December 1961. Franquin suffered from severe depression and jaundice. It was not until 1963 that he was able to continue work on the canceled Spirou and Fantasio adventure QRN calls Bretzelburg . Two more stories followed, which in their gag-relatedness strongly reminded of Gaston , until Franquin finally gave up the series completely in 1968 and with the 18th album Die Goldmacher ceded to Jean-Claude Fournier in order to be able to devote himself entirely to Gaston. At the same time, he ceded the rights for all the characters in the series he created to the Dupuis publishing house. However, he kept the rights to the characters of Marsupilami and Gaston Lagaffe and continued both series. In the album "Die Goldmacher" he drew the marsupilami again, which appeared for the last time in a Spirou story. He did this for two reasons: on the one hand, to make it easier for Fournier to succeed him, and on the other, because he was of the opinion that Fournier had not sufficiently taken into account the character of Marsupilamis in his conception.

The Antiheldentum Gaston took from the beginning huge impact on the European comic, and so his office experiences were in 1966 expanded to a full page. Already in the half-page phase, Franquin, similar to Spirou, had provided the title character with an abundance of secondary characters, including the choleric businessman Bruchmüller (in the original Aimé De Mesmaeker ), the insidious traffic policeman Knüsel ( Longtarin ) and who fell deeply in love with Gaston Secretary Fraulein Trudel ( Mademoiselle Jeanne ). When Franquin gave up Spirou in 1968, the character Demel ( Léon Prunelle ) replaced Fantasio as Gaston's boss, leading the series to final independence from Spirou and to Gaston having his own series universe instead. Franquin was not satisfied with the role of Fantasio in Gaston anyway, as he gave the "straight man" to Gaston's comical excesses, while in the Spirou comics it was the other way around and Spirou embodied the serious and Fantasio the comic part of the duo. Overall, Gaston is one of the most personal series in comic history, with its creator looking back at the title character as a self-portrait.

Even if Gaston was not a political comic, from the late 1970s onwards Franquin increasingly addressed global political and socially critical issues to which he made his characters refer. In a Gaston strip drawn especially for Amnesty International , he criticized human rights violations and torture. Furthermore, in his comics he emphasized the importance of environmental, nature and animal protection, for which the animal-loving Gaston figure was ideal. There were also some Gaston trips that advertised bus travel. Several strips were made for Greenpeace that criticized whaling .

From 1975 to 1985 Franquin was involved in the scenarios for the series Isabella drawn by Will ( Willy Maltaite ) .

Black thoughts

The black thoughts were short, one-sided gags with very black humor . Still plagued by depression, Franquin drew the series Black Thoughts from 1977 , which appeared in the magazine supplement Trombone Illustré . The supplement, which was only published for a short time and produced by Franquin with Yvan Delporte, contributed significantly to the development of modern European comics for adults. After the end of the Trombone Illustré (October 1977), the black thoughts appeared in the magazine " Fluide Glacial " until the end of 1982 . The bitterly angry and time-critical, in comparison to most of his other works, much more surreal, black and white gags became one of the artist's main works.

1978-1997

In 1978 Franquin developed the comic series "Arnest Ringard" with Delporte ("The quarrels of Ernest Schüreisen and the mole Ottokar"). The series was drawn by (Frédéric) Jannin, the texts were by Franquin.

In 1980 Franquin received the Grand Prize of the Swedish Academy of Comic Art. A year later, he created the narrative novel "Robinson on rails" with Jidéhem and Delporte with Spirou, Fantasio and Gaston in the leading roles. The adventure was illustrated with large-format pictures. In 1982 Franquin's albums reached the 10 million mark.

From 1982 to 1985, Franquin was unable to work due to severe depression. In the irregular drawing style of the last Gaston pages from 1986 onwards, Franquin's changing state of mind is reflected: in some gags quiet, almost carefully drawn lines that lack the dynamism of earlier times, in other gags a shaky one, apparently caused by depression and attacks of illness, " blob 'style.

Since Franquin had kept the rights to the character of Marsupilamis, he staged The Adventures of Marsupilami for the cartoonist Batem from 1987 . Among the various authors of the series were Greg and especially Yann le Pennetier (pseudonym: Yann), who contributed the best scenarios. Altogether undervalued, the series was never able to fully exploit its potential due to the relative limitations of the title character. Ironically, the Marsupilami often acted as a supporting character in his own series, which met with incomprehension among the Spirou fans, who are still waiting for the likeable animal to return to his series. The rights to the Marsupilami were temporarily held by Disney, but Franquin bought the rights back as he was upset that the Disney group had completely changed the concept.

In 1990 Die Tifous , three cheerful bumblebees created for television, of which an album with sketches (including for the film script) emerged, turned into a late work completely contrary to the gloomy black thoughts .

André Franquin died of heart failure two days after his 73rd birthday on the night of January 4th to 5th, 1997 in Nice.

Franquin's wife Liliane died on January 28, 2007.

Aftermath

Today André Franquin is mentioned in the same breath as the great comic artists like Carl Barks or Hergé . Together with Hergé, he influenced a whole generation of cartoonists in France and Belgium and, along with Hergé, Goscinny , Maurice Tillieux , Peyo , Roba and Morris, is considered to be the most influential representative of Franco-Belgian comics . When asked which artists and comics influenced him, Franquin cited Popeye , Walt Disney , Jijé and Snuffy Smith . He has received awards in many European countries and in America for his work. In 1974 the artist was the first winner of the prestigious Grand Prix de la Ville d'Angoulême , awarded at the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême , and in 2005 came 16th in a Walloon survey of the most important Belgians of all time .

literature

  • Numa Sadoul, Horst Berner, Yannick Fallk: The great André Franquin book , Carlsen Verlag 1989, ISBN 3-551-01594-5
  • Andre Franquin, Achim Schnurrer: The Art of André Franquin , Edition Art of Comics / Alpha Comics 1988, ISBN 3-923102-08-9
  • Andreas Platthaus: People in the office. André Franquin celebrates absurdity as a principle with Gaston , in: Classics of comic literature, Volume 18: Gaston, Milano 2005, pp. 3–10. ISBN 3-89981-095-3

Web links

Commons : André Franquin  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: André Franquin  - Quotes
personal data
SURNAME Franquin, André
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian comic artist
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Brussels
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 1997
Place of death Nice