Benjamin Rabier (1864–1939) was a French illustrator,

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

artist and animator. He became famous for creating '' La vache qui rit'' and is one of the precursors of animal comics. His work has inspired many other artists, notably

Hergé Georges Prosper Remi (; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé (; ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials ''RG'', was a Belgian cartoonist. He is best known for creating ''The Adventures of Tintin'', ...

and Edmond-François Calvo. A native of

La Roche-sur-Yon La Roche-sur-Yon () is a commune in the Vendée department in the Pays de la Loire region in western France. It is the capital of the department. The demonym for its inhabitants is ''Yonnais''. History The town expanded significantly after Napo ...

Vendée Vendée (; br, Vande) is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.

, Rabier started to work as an illustrator for various newspapers after meeting

Caran d'Ache Caran d'Ache was the pseudonym of the 19th century French satirist and political cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré (6 November 1858 – 25 February 1909). The pseudonym comes from russian: карандаш, italic=unset, translit=karandash meani ...

. His first album for children was the story of ''Tintin-Lutin'', published in 1898, which told of a young ''lutin'' or "imp"; here his main characters are human and not animals, as they came to be in later albums. His most famous creations are Gideon the duck and the characters he drew for Le roman de Renart. He died at

Faverolles, Indre Faverolles-en-Berry (, literally ''Faverolles in Berry''; before 2017: ''Faverolles'') is a former commune in the Indre department in central France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Villentrois-Faverolles-en-Berry.

, in 1939.

Bibliography

* Olivier Calon, ''Benjamin Rabier'', Paris, Tallandier, 2004

External links

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Tintin-Lutin
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About Benjamin Rabier
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Tintin Lutin

Benjamin Rabier
An animated documentary about "the creator of the Laughing Cow and pioneer of cartoon" on crowdfunding platform Ulule * Issues o
''Histoire comique et Naturelle des Animaux''
in Gallica, the digital library of the BnF. 1864 births 1939 deaths People from La Roche-sur-Yon French illustrators French comics artists French animators French animated film directors Enid Blyton illustrators {{Europe-comics-creator-stub