Jijé

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Jijé (January 13, 1914 - June 20, 1980) was a Belgian comics artist, best known for Spirou et Fantasio and Jerry Spring.

1 Biography
2 Style and appreciation
3 Bibliography
4 Awards
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Biography

Born Joseph Gillain in Gedinne, Namur, he completed various art studies (woodcraft, goldsmithing, drawing and painting). In 1936, he created his first comics character, Jojo in the catholic newspaper Le Croisé. Jojo was heavily influenced by The Adventures of Tintin, but Jijé developed his own style gradually. Soon a second series followed, Blondin et Cirage, for the catholic youth magazine Petits Belges.^[1] Jijé also made many illustrations for Walloon magazines.

In 1939, he started to work for the new magazine Spirou, where he would produce the largest part of his oeuvre until the end of his life. Because the magazine could not receive foreign drawings during the war, he drew most of the comics during that period. He took over the main series of Spirou et Fantasio from the Frenchman Rob-Vel: he added the sidekick Fantasio to the lone hero Spirou to get some comic relief in the series. In the following years, he created his own series "Jean Valhardi" and drew episodes of the American series published during the war, like Red Ryder and Superman, when due to the war the American pages could not reach the publisher.^[1]

His Catholic faith inspired biographies of Don Bosco and Christopher Columbus, as well as a gospel in comics form, Emmanuel.

After the war, he handed over his existing series to younger artists: André Franquin got Spirou et Fantasio, Eddy Paape Jean Valhardi and Victor Hubinon Blondin et Cirage.

He also had a few young cartoonists living in with him in Waterloo, thus creating the so-called "School of Marcinelle": this included André Franquin, Morris, and Will. Other famous artists working in the style and influence of the School of Marcinelle include Peyo and Jean Roba. Later students of Jijé, not really working in the Atom style or the School of Marcinelle, include Jean Giraud (aka Moebius), Jean-Claude Mézières and Guy Mouminoux.

In the 1950s, he drew new adventures of Jean Valhardi and Blondin et Cirage, while starting a new series, the western Jerry Spring. He also drew a biography of Baden-Powell. In the mid-1960s, he took over the artwork of Tanguy et Laverdure from Albert Uderzo and of Redbeard from Victor Hubinon, both in the magazine Pilote.

He died at Versailles after a prolonged illness.

[edit] Style and appreciation

Jijé is one of the few European artists to have made both realistic comics and caricatural ones. After starting in a Hergé-like Ligne claire style, he went on to create his own distinctive style, the so-called Atom style. This style mixed elements of the Ligne Claire with Art Déco elements, and became one of the defining styles of the Franco-Belgian comics. Together with Franquin, Jijé is considered to be the father of the Atom style,^[1], which has had a revival since the 1980s with artists like Yves Chaland and Ever Meulen.

But Jijé was also the first master of the Franco-Belgian realistic comic, with Jerry Spring. Both the drawing style and the writing was very influential and groundbreaking. Artists like Jean Giraud started working in the style of Jijé before developing their own style. In his writing, he can be seen as a transitional figure between the classic hero-driven comics like Alix or Michel Vaillant, and the modern anti-heroes like Blueberry or the works of Hermann Huppen. Jerry Spring still was the perfect, flawless hero, but the rest of the cast was no longer strictly divided in heroes, victims and villains, and no longer was the Native American the bloodthirsty figure he often was in earlier comics. A similar early anti-racist message was also given by Blondin et Cirage, with a white and a black boy as equal heroes.

Less well known is work as a sculptor and a painter, mainly used for his private use or for family and friends. His illustrations for stories like The Count of Monte Cristo mix elements from his comic work and his paintings into one decorative style.

Jijé is held in high esteem by many of his peers, both those he was a teacher for like Franquin and Moebius, and other ones. Tibet, author of Ric Hochet and Chick Bill, and for the major part of his career working for the concurrential magazine Tintin, has said that "If Hergé is considered as God the Father, then Jijé undoubtedly is the Godfather".^[1]

Since 2004, the Maison de la Bande Dessinée, a comics museum in Brussels, has opened, originally as a Jijé-museum but later changed to a general museum centered around the work of Jijé and the influence he had.^[2]