Raymond Macherot

Raymond Macherot was one of the classic artists of the franco-belgian school, who has published his work in both Tintin and Spirou. He was a master in poetic and satirical animal comics, as can be seen in his two main series, 'Chlorophylle' and 'Sibylline'. The sharp humour and funny characters make his series some of the best in the genre. Born in Verviers, Raymond Macherot originally focused on a career in journalism and painting, but he soon started illustrating for financial reasons.

His first drawings, which he made under the name Zara, appeared in the magazine Pan. Macherot's actual comics career started in 1953, when he joined the Tintin magazine and the art studios of Lombard publishers. There, he did several illustrations and short stories. He also wrote the first episode for 'Le Chevalier Blanc', a series drawn for several years by Fred and Liliane Funcken.

A year later, he created his first and best known animal series, 'Chlorophylle et Minimum'. Macherot drew the series until 1963, commenting on many social en political issues through the view of the rodents Chlorophylle and Minimum and their continuing problems with vicious gangs of rats and ferets. Many artists had their turn on the comic in the years that followed, such as Pierre Guilmard, Hubuc, Dupa and Walli. While doing 'Chlorophylle', Macherot additionally produced one-shots like 'Père la Houle' and 'Klaxon'. He also created the famous series about the typical British detective 'Clifton' in 1960, of which he wrote and drew three episodes himself, and which was illustrated afterwards by Jo-El Azara, Turk and Bédu.

Macherot left Tintin in 1964 and joined Spirou magazine, where he made his debut with the brilliant animal comic 'Chaminou et le Khrompire', about an aristocratic cat in the kingdom Zoolande. Unfortunately, the series lasted for only one episode (until 1989, when it was continued by Denis Bodart and Yann and later by Olivier Saive and Macherot himself). A year later, Macherot came up with 'Sybilline et Taboum', in which he continued the themes he had previously explored in 'Chlorophylle'. Macherot drew this series until his retirement in the 1990s.

Sybilline's initial enemy, the stupid cat 'Pantouffle', briefly got a spin-off gag series in he 1960s, written by René Goscinny. In the 1970s, Macherot teamed up with writer Raoul Cauvin to begin the gag series about the cat 'Mirliton'. As a scenarist, Raymond Macherot cooperated with Yvan Delporte on the creation of 'Mulligan' (drawn by Berck) and 'Isabelle' (drawn by Will). In 2005, Macherot and artist André Taymans started working on new adventures of 'Sybilline', published by Éditions Flouzemaker. Raymond Macherot passed away in September 2008.