Raymond Poïvet

Educated at the School of Fine Arts in Raymond Poïvet began his career as a decorator and a designer before he started his comics career in 1941 at the publishing house Éditions Mondiales. His first work was doing cover illustrations and some historical comic strips such as 'Christophe Colomb', 'Marion Delorme', and 'La Reine Margot' in Grandes Aventures. He succeeded Auguste Liquois on 'Vers les Mondes Inconnus' in Le Téméraire in 1944. In the following year, he began a collaboration with the publishing house Vaillant and created his masterpiece together with writer Roger Lécureux: the science-fiction comic 'Les Pionniers de l'Espérance' ('The Pioniers of Hope'). This series, considered one of the best in its genre, was published in the magazine Vaillant and later in Pif Gadget until 1973.

While working on his successful series, Poïvet also produced independent stories for Vaillant. But he was also present in other magazines, such as Roger l'Écureuil ('Le Sous-marin Pirate') O.K. ('Marc Reynes'), Coq Hardi ('Maquis contre SS', 'L'Évasion du Capitaine Gilles', 'Colonel X'), Kid Magazine ('Les Aventures de Kid'), King-Kong (succeeding Calvo on 'King-Kong') and L'Intrépide ('Tumak, Fils de la Jungle').

From 1953 to 1956 he was also active for the female press. For magazines like Nous Deux, Bonnes Soirées, Femmes d'Aujourd'hui, La Vie en Fleurs, he created several stories and comic adaptations. At the same time Poïvet started out at Pilote, where he illustrated series such as 'Mark Trent' (1959-60), 'Fangio' (text by F. Dominique, 1960) and, most notably, 'Guy Lebleu' (text by Charlier, 1961-67).

In the early 1960s, he drew sixteen episodes of 'Mam'zelle Minouche' with scripts by Roger Lécureux for L'Humanité, a strip later continued by Pierre Dupuis. Around this time, Poïvet also sporadically appeared in Chouchou ('P'tit Gus et les Mystères'), Total Journal ('La Première Campagne' with Linus) and Comics 130. When Poïvet left Pif Gadet in 1973, he teamed up with Jean-Pierre Dionnet and created 'Tiriel'. This heroic fantasy ran for ten years in the monthly Lucky Luke and Métal Hurlant.

In 1976, he created 'Néfertati' for L'Écho des Savanes. Around the same time, he contributed to the Larousse collections 'L'Histoire de France en Bandes Dessinées', 'La Découverte du Monde en Bandes Dessinées', 'L'Histoire de la Chine' and 'Décourvrir la Bible'. In Circus, he made 'LÉchiquier Cubique', a story later published in album by Glénat.

Poïvet remained active throughout the 1980s. He published the first pages of 'Opus 4' in Neutron, a story later printed in album by Artefact (1985). He also drew 'La Flûte Enchantée' for Alliance Média, as well as several stories for Okapi ('Le Voyage de L'Obélisque', 'Buffon', 'Le Dernier Jour de Pompéï').