Jijé

Jijé was one of the great Belgian comic artists - along with Hergé, E.P. Jacobs, and Franquin. Thanks to him, many talented artists got their careers going, like Franquin, Peyo, Morris and Giraud. Jijé's style was esthetic and beautiful and most of all, very realistic. But he was a humorist as well, and a painter, and also the founder of the Marcinelle School which pitted itself against the Hergean (Bruxelles) School. He was the driving force behind Spirou magazine during World War II, and the creator of such classic series as 'Jean Valhardi', 'Jerry Spring', and 'Blondin et Cirage'. He also successfully continued series created by others, such as 'Tanguy et Laverdure' and 'Barbe-Rouge'.

Born in Gedinne, Joseph Gillain was encouraged by his parents to pursue his artistic talents. He took courses from the Dinant painter Alex Daoust and attended the Saint-Joseph school in Maredsous, where he learned modeling, sculpting, painting and ceramics from Benedicitine monks. The neo-impressionist painter learned him how to draw without looking to the paper, a technique Gillain would also teach his own students. After completing an educations in fine arts and applied arts in Brussels, Gillain began a collaboration with the catholic magazine Le Croisé.

For this magazine, Joseph Gillain created the character of 'Jojo' in 1936. 'Jojo' had a resemblance to Hergé's 'Tintin', who appeared in the competiting magazine Le Petit Vingtième. In addition, Jijé launched two new characters in Petits Belges, 'Blondin et Cirage'. Three stories were published, and Jijé dropped Hergé's influence along the way.

In 1939, he started to work for the recently started magazine Spirou, published by Dupuis in Marcinelle. There, he created 'Le Mystère de la Clef Indoue', a story with 'Freddy Fred' published from April to November 1939. Under the title 'Freddy aux Indes', the story also appeared in Le Croisé, until the German oppressor forbid further publication in May 1940.

Another early creation for Spirou was 'Trinet et Trinette dans l'Himalaya'. Spirou, mostly filled with American comics at the time, was unable to receive any of the foreign work when World War II broke out, so Jijé continued most of the running comics at the time. He took over the title comic 'Spirou' from Frenchman Rob-Vel, adding the side-character Fantasio, and filled episodes of American series like Fred Harman's 'Red Ryder' and Siegel & Shuster's 'Superman'.

In addition, he made the comics biogaphies 'Don Bosco - Ami des Jeunes' (1941-1942) and 'Christophe Collomb' (1942-43), his first fully realistic stories. Also, together with editor and scriptwriter Jean Doisy, he created the insurance agent/detective 'Jean Valhardi' in 1941. After some episodes in Belgium, the authors sent their character, most of the time in the company of the little Jacquot, on more exotic adventures around the world. Also in this comic, Jijé's style shifted from more caricatural to realistic.

In the post-War years, Jijé became a teacher and inspiration for a new generation of comics artists, the one that would make the glory days of Spirou magazine in the 1950s and would become known as the "School of Marcinelle". He took the young artists André Franquin, Morris and Will in his home in Waterloo to work in his studio. The four artists are often referred to as "the Gang of Four". In the years that followed, Jijé also encouraged artists like Eddy Paape, Victor Hubinon, Peyo and Jean Giraud in their careers.

In 1946, Jijé decided to create the gospel in comics format: 'Emmanuel', in cooperation with priest Henri Balthasar, who made sure that the litteral text of the Bible was followed. In order to spend all his time on this project, he simply "handed out" his other series to his students. Franquin got 'Spirou', Paape got 'Valhardi' and Hubinon drew a new adventure with Gillain's earlier characters 'Blondin et Cirage'.

Afterwards, he travelled through Mexico and the USA for a couple of years, accompanied by his family, Franquin and Morris, to get inspiration for a new version of his 'Don Bosco' biography. The redrawn version was published in Le Moustique in 1949-50 and published in album in 1951.

Between 1948 and 1950, he made the comics biography of 'Baden Powell'. In the following year, he began a new series of adventures with 'Blondin et Cirage'. He also took over 'Jean Valhardi' again (1956), who was this time accompanied by the goofy side-character Gégène. Aided by scriptwriters like Jean-Michel Charlier, Philip Gillain (his son) and Guy Mouminoux, Jije made new episodes with the character until 1965.

Jijé created the classic western 'Jerry Spring' in 1954, of which 25 long stories appeared until 1977, written either by Jijé himself, or by Maurice Rosy, René Goscinny, Jean Acquaviva, Jacques Lob or Philip Gillain. In 1959, he made yet another biography, this time of 'Charles de Foucauld'.

In addition to his work for Spirou, Jijé was present in the female weekly Bonnes Soirées from 1950 with illustrations, as well as the sentimental story 'El Senserinico', based on the work of Flora Sabeiran. For Le Moustique, he made illustrations for 'Le Comte de Monte-Cristo' by Alexandre Dumas, and a comics adaptation of Joseph Pirot's novel 'Blanc-Casque'. He made the first episodes of 'Bernadette' for the magazine Line from 1958. The complete story was published in album by Fleurus in 1979.

In 1964-65, he worked with his student Herbert and scriptwriter Charles Jadoul on the first two episodes of 'Docteur Gladstone' in Spirou. A year, later, he took over the artwork of 'Tanguy & Laverdure' from Albert Uderzo, published in Pilote and later Tintin and Super-As (scripts by Jean-Michel Charlier).

Gillain took on a more caricatural style again for 'Les Enquêtes du Commissaire Major' in La Voix du Nord (scripts by Jean-Paul Rouland and Pierre Bellemare, 1971-73) and 'Que Barbaridad!' in the Spirou supplement Le Trombone Illustré (1977). In 1979, he took over later 'Barbe-Rouge' from Hubinon, assisted by his son Laurent Gillain (Lorg). Joseph Gillain died in Versailles in June 1980, while working on new episodes of 'Tanguy et Laverdure' and 'Barbe-Rouge'.