Jean-Claude Forest

Jean-Claude Forest (born September 11, 1930 in Le Perreux-sur-Marne near Paris , † December 30, 1998 ) was a French cartoonist .

Career

Jean-Claude Forest studied at the École des Arts et Métiers in Paris and was able to publish his first comic, Flèche Noire , an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow , as early as 1949 while studying . From 1952 he drew for the comic magazine Vaillant , designed paperback covers in the science fiction area and published his first revealing comics in the daily newspaper France-Soir .

After his success with Barbarella , he founded the comic magazine Chouchou in 1964 , in which he continued the idea of ​​the teenage heroine in the future with his series Bébé Cyanure , the title heroine looked like a little sister of Barbarella. However, the magazine had to be discontinued after 14 issues.

In 1971 Forest began a new series Hypocrite , which first appeared in France-Soir and from 1972 in Pilote magazine. This and the following series could not build on the success of Barbarella and in the following years he worked mainly as an author for other draftsmen. With Jacques Tardi , he created the comic novel Ici Même in 1978 . He wrote the story for Die Schiffwüchigen der Zeit (draftsman Paul Gillon ) and worked with Max Cabanes . From 1980 he wrote for the magazine (à suivre) . In 1986 he became editor-in-chief for children's magazines at Bayard-Presse.

Barbarella

Forest achieved international success with his series Barbarella , which appeared in V magazine in 1962 . Barbarella, a busty science fiction heroine, was attractive, sexually active, and very permissive. It stood out from the comic publications in France, which at the time were mainly aimed at younger audiences. The comics had quite simply structured actions, in the foreground were the erotic adventures of the main character dressed in a skin-tight suit. Barbarella surrendered to almost every man she met and didn't leave out a robot either. The representation of the sexual act itself was always left out, only the scenes before or after the reader were presented. In 1964 an album with the first eight episodes was released, which initially met with fierce opposition due to its erotic depictions and was temporarily banned. Due to the public uproar and the ban, however, interest in the comic grew, so that new editions appeared in 1966 and 1968, in which, however, slight retouching was made. A total of four Barbarella albums were released. Forest also designed the film adaptation with Jane Fonda in the lead role, which appeared in 1968.

Awards

In 1983 he won the Grand Prix de la Ville d'Angoulême at the International Comics Festival in Angoulême .