François Bourgeon (born 5 July 1945,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
) is a French
comics artist
A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary a ...
.
Biography
Bourgeon was originally educated as a master
stained glass artist, but difficulties in finding employment and a passion for drawing altered his course onto a different career. Getting illustrations published in magazines from 1971 eventually led him to pursue
graphic storytelling and to develop his craft over the next few years. His first major comic work became the two first outings in the
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
series ', created for publisher
Glénat Editions
Glénat Editions SA is a French publisher with its head office in Grenoble. Their products include comic albums and manga in France, Benelux, and in the past Spain; it was founded by Jacques Glénat. The Benelux subsidiary, Glénat Benelux N.V., ...
who released the two titles directly in
comic album
a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...
format. These two titles already foreshadowed his later, more grim medieval epos ' (''The Companions of the Dusk''), both thematically as well as art-wise. When the ' (''The Passengers of the Wind'') series was serialized for which Bourgeon abandoned ''Brunelle et Colin'' in ''Circus'' magazine in 1979, likewise published by Glénat, it became recognized as one of the most important European comic series of its era. His graphic novels have ranged from
nautical
Seamanship is the art, knowledge and competence of operating a ship, boat or other craft on water. The'' Oxford Dictionary'' states that seamanship is "The skill, techniques, or practice of handling a ship or boat at sea."
It involves topics ...
and medieval historical fiction to
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
, and characteristically, within settings of
violence
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...
and
sexuality, epic stories revolve around strong female characters. Brunelle,
Isa,
Mariotte and
Cyann are the heroines of each their series, ''Brunelle et Colin'', ''The Passagers of the Wind, The Twilight Companions'' and ''The Cyann Saga'', respectively. Bourgeon is noted as a thorough researcher and his drawings, from 17th-century ships to 14th-century clothing, have a reputation for historical accuracy. For example, when working on ''The Passengers of the Wind'', he did a vast amount of background reading, consulted academic specialists and visited the Maritime Museum in Nantes. For this series he also made scale models both of colonial architectural structures and one of the ships on which the main characters sail, in order to ensure that the dimensions and the interior layouts were correct. His time-consuming and meticulous research has resulted in that his body of work is relatively modest in comparison to the ones created by his major contemporaries such as
Jean "Mœbius" Giraud,
Hermann Huppen
Hermann Huppen (born 17 July 1938) is a Belgian comic book artist. He is better known under his pen-name Hermann. He is most famous for his post-apocalyptic comic ''Jeremiah'' which was made into a television series.
Biography
Hermann was bo ...
or
André Juillard
André Juillard (born 9 June 1948) is a French comic book creator.
Biography
Born in Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 ...
. He lives in
Cornouaille
Cornouaille (; br, Kernev, Kerne) is a historical region on the west coast of Brittany in West France. The name is cognate with Cornwall in neighbouring Great Britain. This can be explained by the settlement of Cornouaille by migrant princ ...
in
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
.
The Cyann Saga affair
When Bourgeon's usual editor since 1983, the family-owned company
Casterman
Casterman is a publisher of Franco-Belgian comics, specializing in comic books and children's literature. The company is based in Brussels, Belgium.
History
The company was founded in 1780 by Donat-Joseph Casterman, an editor and bookseller ...
, was bought by the large corporation Flammarion, problems arose.
Bourgeon and Lacroix claimed that Flammarion had altered the sales numbers to slow down royalty payments to the authors, and then committed other irregularities. The authors took Flammarion to court in 1999. Flammarion countersued separately, charging the authors over failure to produce a new album of the Cyann series in less than three years. The contract between the authors and Casterman had never specified a fixed date or time period for producing any album, but despite this, on 30 October 2001 a court decided in favor of Flammarion and ordered the authors to produce an album (the third of the series), with a fine of €1000 per each day's delay. On 27 April 2004 an appeals court finally overturned the judgment of the previous court.
In the meantime these litigations had become a "cause célèbre" in France, because of the intellectual freedom questions and
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
issues they raised in literary circles. In the end, the authors got their liberty and their rights and the third album of the cycle finally came out in 2005, eight years after the previous one, through a different publishing house, Vents d'Ouest.
Nature of collaboration with Claude Lacroix
In an interview in the "Dare-Dare" program of Radio Suisse Romande, as wall as a February 2007 interview on the launch of "Les couleurs de Marcade" installment in the "Cycle de Cyann" series, François Bourgeon revealed the nature of the collaboration between him and Claude Lacroix. For this most recent album as well as the others in the Cyann series Lacroix had the task of creating nearly all of the complex decors, natural or man made be they planets or islands, cities or buildings. In this way he created for Bourgeon the futuristic equivalent of the thorough documentation which had always been the basis for his previous series.
Lacroix, an old friend and collaborator of Bourgeon from times pre-dating those of his other series, created the decors and many of the more important objects of the Cyann series by making sketches and drawings and paintings, and also a few solid three-dimensional models at times. The solid model for the city in "Les couleurs de Marcade" took up several meters of space at Lacroix's home. The process for this universe-making was always interactive and non-exclusive. In some instances Bourgeon would choose to make himself some of those background sketches, and he would later show them to Lacroix for his opinion. Regardless of who initiated a sketch or large drawing, the two would exchange comments at all steps as the decor went from early sketch form to finished product within the BD.
Selected bibliography
Brunelle et Colin
(with )
*1. ''Le vol noir'' (1979,
)
*2. ''Yglinga'' (1980,
)
Les Passagers du vent (The Passengers of the Wind)
*1. ''La fille sous la dunette'' (1980,
)
*2. ''Le ponton'' (1980,
)
*3. ''Le comptoir de Juda'' (1981,
)
*4. ''L'heure du serpent'' (1982,
)
*5. ''Le bois d'ébène'' (1984,
)
*6. ''La petite fille Bois-Caïman - Livre 1'' (2009,
)
*7. ''La petite fille Bois-Caïman - Livre 2'' (2010,
)
*8. ''Le sang des cerises - Livre 1: Rue de l'Abreuvoir'' (2018,
)
*9. ''Le sang des cerises - Livre 2: Rue des Martyrs'' (planned release: 2023
)
*HS. ''Les chantiers d'une aventure'' (1994, with Michel Thiébaut,
)
*HS. ''Le chemin de l'Atchafalaya'' (2010, with Michel Thiébaut,
)
Les Compagnons du crépuscule (The Companions of the Dusk)
*1. ''Le sortilège du bois des brumes'' (1983,
)
*2. ''Les yeux d'étain de la ville glauque'' (1986,
)
*3. ''Le dernier chant des Malaterre'' (1990,
)
*HS ''Dans le sillage des sirènes'' (1992, with Michel Thiébaut,
)
Le Cycle de Cyann (The Cyann Saga)
(with
Claude Lacroix)
*1. ''La sOurce et la sOnde'' (1993,
)
*2. ''Six saisons sur ilO'' (1997,
)
*3. ''Aïeïa d'Aldaal'' (2005,
)
*4. ''Les couleurs de Marcade'' (2007,
)
*5. ''Les couloirs de l'Entretemps'' (2012,
)
*6. ''Les aubes douces d'Aldalarann'' (2014)
*HS. ''La clef des confins: D'Olh à ilO et au-delà'' (1997,
)
Awards
* 1980:
Best Artist at the
Angoulême International Comics Festival
The Angoulême International Comics Festival (french: Festival international de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême) is the second largest comics festival in Europe after the Lucca Comics & Games in Italy, and the third biggest in the world after ...
, France
* 1985:
FM-BD Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival
* 1988: nominated for Best Long Comic Strip and Best Drawing at the
Haxtur Awards,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
* 1991:
Angoulême Audience Award for ''Le dernier chant des Malaterre''
* 1998: Prix Ozone, Bande dessinée francophone for ''Six saisons sur IlO''
* 1998: Angoulême Prix Alph-Art du Public for ''Le Cycle de Cyann-Six saisons sur IlO''
References
Bourgeon publications in ''Circus''an
BDoubliées
Bedetheque
Footnotes
External links
François Bourgeon biographyon Casterman
on Vents d'Ouest
on Lambiek Comiclopedia
Article from ''Image & Narrative''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bourgeon, Francois
1945 births
French comics artists
French comics writers
French speculative fiction artists
Living people
Science fiction artists
French male writers