FOURNIER

JEAN-CLAUDE FOURNIER Fournier. My life of dreams Daniel Maghen 2024 Set of 5 original unpublished plates produced in 1981-1982 for the story La Maison dans la mousse. Signed. India ink and graphite on paper Plate no. 1: 36 × 44 cm (14.17 × 17.32 in.) Boards no. 2 to 5: 36.5 × 44.5 cm (14.37 × 17.51 in.) The following pages present the five plates from Spirou and Fantasio's adventure La Maison dans la mousse. All the ingredients were there for a great story: Franquin had supervised the script, and Will was to create the sets for the house in the moss itself. It was at the end of plate 5 that I made the decision to stop drawing the adventures of the little bellboy, the end of a great joy I'd enjoyed so much. And yet, I had other great story projects, scenarios that were more and more in touch with society, its changes, its ups and downs. But the publisher's blindness, his lack of knowledge of comics, his listening to "whispers in the corridors" discouraged and disgusted me, and I sadly abandoned this comic strip that had given me so much happiness from my earliest childhood to my forties. My greatest satisfaction, which shows just how foolish the publisher's grievances against me were, is that albums I drew almost 50 years ago are still being sold, signed and read. Jean-Claude Fournier If there's one author whose historical importance needs to be reassessed, it's Jean-Claude Fournier. He succeeded the great André Franquin on Spirou, who had given him his stamp of approval. These few plates show us the extent of his talent, if not his genius: he made the master's characters his own, without ever falling into imitation. In these plates, his Champignac and Spip are alive and well. His secondary characters, such as the poet-postman and the mechanic, are perfectly original, while his "animal" approach to vehicles, from the bicycle to the "deuch", lends his plates a poetic touch that is his trademark. It's worth noting that this story benefited from a helping hand from Franquin and Will, the latter of whom was responsible for the future sets. Didier Pasamonik