Jidéhem

Jidéhem ("JDM"), actually: Jean De Mesmaeker (born December 21, 1935 in Brussels ; † April 30, 2017 ibid) was a Belgian comic author and an important representative of the École Marcinelle drawing style .

Life

Jidéhem was born in Brussels in December 1935 and took an early interest in comics. As a child he began to trace the adventures of Tintin and then decided to go to the Institut Saint-Luc . Jidéhem was also heavily influenced by Maurice Tillieux and his series Félix , whereupon he himself drew a detective series called Ginger , which was published in 1954 in Héroïc-Albums magazine. At this point he also took on his pseudonym Jidéhem . In 1956 the series was canceled and only continued twenty years later.

In 1957, through Tillieux, he succeeded in joining the Spirou magazine and Charles Dupuis sent him to André Franquin to support him in his series Spirou and Fantasio and Gaston . Here Jidéhem also met his future wife Gwendoline , who was the secretary of Yvan Delporte , the editor-in-chief at Spirou since 1955.

Jidéhem also worked on the series Starter and Sophie . He drew the Starter series with Jacques Wauters until the 1980s.

Over 500 gags were created with Franquin about Gaston, which even gave him the hope of being able to take over the series. A character that Franquin invented had similarities with the father of Jidéhem, which is why he was named Monsieur de Mesmaeker (in German: Herr Bruchmüller ). The collaboration on Gaston lasted until 1967, when Franquin decided to drop the Spirou and Fantasio series and thus had enough time to concentrate on Gaston alone.

Through the long-standing collaboration with André Franquin, several volumes on Spirou and Fantasio, such as Das Nest im Urwald , Z for Zyklotrop and QRN calls Bretzelburg , have been created. Not to be forgotten are the series Die Rasselbande with Jean Roba and Natascha with François Walthéry .

Jidéhem died on April 30, 2017 at the age of 81 in his hometown of Brussels.

Web links

• Biography on Bedetheque.com (French)
• Biography on the website of the Dupuis publishing house (French)