Denis Lebrun (born April 30, 1958) is a

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

artist best known for his collaboration with Dean Young on the '' Blondie'' comic strip.

Comic strips

Born in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...

, Lebrun entered the comic strip field in 1975 with ''Rolling with Roger'' in the ''Tampa Neighbor'' newspaper. In 1976, Lebrun had a daily strip, ''Aw Heck'', in the ''Tampa Times'' until 1979. ''Aw Heck'' then appeared in the ''Clearwater Sun'' from 1979 until 1980.

''Blondie''

Lebrun originally assisted on the

King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editoria ...

comic strip '' Blondie'' as early as 1977, furnishing the strip's owner Dean Young with gag scripts.Moriaty, William
"Interview with Denis Lebrun"
(Part one). ''La Floridiana''. September 12, 2002. In 1982, Lebrun became ''Blondies assistant illustrator to head artist

Mike Gersher Mike Gersher was formerly an artist on the Blondie comic strip. He started being credited as the head artist in late December 1981, after the death of the long serving Jim Raymond James Crossley Raymond (February 25, 1917 – October 14, 1981) ...

. In this capacity, Lebrun inked the lettering, backgrounds and incidental and secondary characters of the strip. Gersher left the strip in 1984 and was replaced that same year with veteran comic strip illustrator

Stan Drake Stanley Albert Drake (November 9, 1921 – March 10, 1997) was an American cartoonist best known as the founding artist of the comic strip ''The Heart of Juliet Jones''. Born in Brooklyn, Drake worked in the back of a Dugan's Donut truck for a do ...

. Drake was the head artist of the strip until his death in 1997. Cartoonist Jeff Parker assisted with the production of the daily strip from 1996 until Lebrun's departure.Moriaty, William
"Interview with Denis Lebrun"
(Part two). ''La Floridiana''. September 2002. In May 1997, Lebrun took over full artistic responsibilities of the strip and was the lead artist until 2005. His final illustrations appeared in the Sunday, July 31, 2005 edition of the strip. The last Lebrun signature was on the September 3, 2005 strip According to comics historian

R. C. Harvey Robert C. Harvey (May 31, 1937 – July 7, 2022) was an American author, critic and cartoonist. He wrote a number of books on the history and theory of cartooning, with special focus on the comic strip. He also worked as a freelance cartoonist. ...

, Lebrun was succeeded by

John Marshall John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the fourth Chief Justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remains the longest-serving chief justice and fourth-longes ...

, although Marshall remained uncredited until Sunday, January 7, 2007. Marshall had been assisting Lebrun and Jeff Parker on the daily ''Blondie'' since December 2002.

Digital Dagwood

During his tenure with ''Blondie'', Lebrun introduced changes to the appearance and production of the strip. Almost immediately after taking the helm, Lebrun began to modernize it by updating Dagwood's wardrobe, replacing dial phones with touch-tone phones, adding computer terminals to Dagwood's place of work and replacing paper charts with digital presentations. In spite of these changes, Lebrun kept the appearance of the strip close to the style of previous ''Blondie'' veteran artist

Jim Raymond James Crossley Raymond (February 25, 1917 – October 14, 1981) was an American comic strip artist and the younger brother of ''Flash Gordon'' artist Alex Raymond. He was also the great-uncle of actors Matt Dillon and Kevin Dillon. Biography Born ...

. As early as 1985, Lebrun began to use the computer as a means to streamline and modernize production. Originally, he employed the conventional tools and materials used by earlier ''Blondie'' artists: steel pen points (originally Gillot 1290s, later Hunt 103 or 104s for the line work and filed-down Speedball A-2s for lettering), Strathmore two-ply plate finish paper and Pelikan drawing ink. By January 2002, Lebrun made the strip's production fully digital, abandoning paper, pencil and ink in favor of the PowerPC G4.

References

External links

Denis Lebrun Studio Portfolio site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lebrun, Denis 1958 births American comic strip cartoonists Living people Blondie (comic strip)