| Janry | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Jean-Richard Geurts 2 October 1957 Jadotville, Belgian Congo |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Area(s) | artist |
Notable works | Le Petit Spirou Spirou et Fantasio |
| Awards | full list |
Jean-Richard Geurts, better known under his pseudonym Janry (born 2 October 1957), is a Belgian comics artist. With Tome he created Le Petit Spirou and made several Spirou et Fantasio albums.
Born in Jadotville (now Likasi) in the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), he moved to Brussels, Belgium with his parents when he was ten years old, and went to school in Jodoigne. [1] His main hobby at the time was drawing, especially planes and other technological items.[ citation needed ]
In 1974, he took a comics course where he learned to draw figures, and where he met Vandevelde, of the same age and also studying in Jodoigne, although at a different college. They became friends, and attended the same Art Academy in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert studying the making of comics. There they met Stéphane De Becker, and the three together made comics, sharing the roles of author, artists, and colourist, but later they all would more or less specialize, with Janry mainly functioning as the artist.
After his studies, Janry began a professional career by becoming the assistant of Francis for the series Ford T , and later assisted Dupa for Cubitus . During this period, he also collaborated with Greg and with Turk and Bob de Groot. [1]
Together with Tome, he started working for Spirou magazine, where they created the games page Eureka!, signing as J.R. and PH. They later changed their pseudonyms to Tome (for Philippe Vandevelde, who used Tom from a very early age) and Janry (from Jean-Richard). This was intended as a pun on Tom and Jerry.
In 1981, they started working with the adventures of Spirou et Fantasio . This is the title series of Spirou magazine, in continuous production since 1938 by a succession of authors, most famously André Franquin. The last of those, Jean-Claude Fournier, had left the series at the end of the 1970s, and the magazine was looking for a solution to get the series back in production. Three teams started making stories, but after a few years only Tome and Janry remained. For them, it was a childhood dream, and they showed their first two pilot pages to Franquin to get some advice. [1] They continued making stories until 1998, when after 14 albums they ended their run.
However, in 1988, they began the project Le Petit Spirou , a spin-off telling stories from Spirou's youth, predominantly in the 1 page format. Since then, they have published 12 albums of this series. After a few years, the series reached a circulation of 500,000 copies for each new album, thus becoming more successful than the original series. [1]
Janry now functions as artist, and Tome as author of the stories, with Stéphane De Becker as colourist.
Gaston is a Belgian gag-a-day comic strip created in 1957 by the Belgian cartoonist André Franquin in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou. The series focuses on the everyday life of Gaston Lagaffe, a lazy and accident-prone office junior who works at Spirou's office in Brussels. Gaston is very popular in large parts of Europe and has been translated into over a dozen languages, but except for a few pages by Fantagraphics in the early 1990s, there was no English translation until Cinebook began publishing English language editions of Gaston books in July, 2017.
André Franquin was an influential Belgian comics artist, whose best-known creations are Gaston and Marsupilami. He also produced the Spirou et Fantasio comic strip from 1946 to 1968, a period seen by many as the series' golden age.
Philippe Vandevelde, working under the pseudonym Tome, was a Belgian comics writer. He was known for collaborations with Janry on Spirou et Fantasio and Le Petit Spirou, and with Luc Warnant and later Bruno Gazzotti on Soda. He also collaborated with Ralph Meyer on Berceuse assassine, and with Marc Hardy on Feux. Earlier in his career he was an assistant-artist for Dupa.
Marsupilami is a comic book character and fictional animal species created by André Franquin. Its first appearance was in the 31 January 1952 issue of the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou. Since then it appeared regularly in the popular Belgian comics series Spirou & Fantasio, as a pet of the main characters, until Franquin stopped working on the series; the character's final appearance in the series during Franquin's lifetime was in 1970.
Spirou is a weekly Franco-Belgian comics magazine published by the Dupuis company since April 21, 1938. It is an anthology magazine with new features appearing regularly, containing a mix of short humor strips and serialized features, of which the most popular series would be collected as albums by Dupuis afterwards.
Joseph Gillain, better known by his pen name Jijé, was a Belgian comics artist, best known for being a seminal artist on the Spirou et Fantasio strip and the creator of one of the first major European western strips, Jerry Spring.
Zantafio is a recurring fictional antagonist in the Spirou et Fantasio comic book series. He was created by André Franquin and first appeared in Spirou et les héritiers (1952). Zantafio bears a strong resemblance to Fantasio, because they are cousins. In Le dictateur et le champignon (1953), he is a South-American dictator of the fictional country Palombia.
Spirou & Fantasio is one of the most popular classic Franco-Belgian comics. The series, which has been running since 1938, shares many characteristics with other European humorous adventure comics like The Adventures of Tintin, Lucky Luke, and Asterix. It has been written and drawn by a succession of artists.
Éditions Dupuis S.A. is a Belgian publisher of comic albums and magazines.
Seccotine is a recurring character from the Spirou et Fantasio comics, and the first major female character of the series, a strong-willed reporter. She was created by André Franquin, and made her first appearance in La turbotraction serialised in 1953 and published in the album La corne de rhinocéros in 1955.
Le Petit Spirou is a popular Belgian comic strip created by Tome and Janry in 1987. The series developed from La jeunesse de Spirou (1987), a Spirou & Fantasio album in which Tome and Janry set to imagine Spirou's youth. It was developed into a spin-off series shortly afterwards and the authors have focused on it ever since the controversy created after their final Spirou et Fantasio album, Machine qui rêve (1998). New albums are among the bestselling French-language comics, with 330,000 copies for the latest one.
Virus, written by Tome and drawn by Janry, is the 33rd album of the Spirou et Fantasio series, and the first to come from this creative team, carrying on the series after the work of previous authors. The story was initially serialised in Spirou magazine before being released by Dupuis as a hardcover album in 1984.
Henri Gillain was a Belgian teacher and comics enthusiast who on several occasions wrote scripts for Franco-Belgian comics publications in the segment known as Bande Dessinée. He was also the brother of Joseph Gillain, famous by the pseudonym Jijé.
Willy Maltaite, better known by the pseudonym Will, was a Belgian comics creator and comics artist in the Franco-Belgian tradition. In the genre known in Francophone countries as bande dessinée, Will is one of the young cartoonists trained by Jijé, who made them live and work with him in his studio in Waterloo. He is considered one of la Bande des Quatre, and a founding member of the Marcinelle school.
Jean De Mesmaeker known by the pseudonym Jidéhem ("JDM"), was a Belgian comics artist in the Marcinelle school tradition. He was best known for his series featuring a cute, playful and adventurous young girl, Sophie. A creator of his own series Sophie, and Ginger, and noted for his work with Starter and Uhu-man, he is known for his collaborations and assistance to the work of André Franquin during a long career at the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou, working on Spirou et Fantasio and Gaston Lagaffe, on which he shared co-authorship for several years.
Marsu Productions, or simply Marsu, is a publishing house and licensing and merchandising company located in Monaco, managing Franco-Belgian comics characters and copyright concerns, chiefly from the comics universe of André Franquin.
Noël, or Le Petit Noël, is the main character of an eponymous Belgian comics series, and a secondary character of Spirou et Fantasio. His name means "Christmas" in French. The series Noël was created in 1957 by André Franquin and Jidéhem and published in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou, while Franquin created the following work alone or together with Will.
Marcel Denis was a French-speaking Belgian comics creator. He was the creator of the series Hultrasson and Les Frères Clips in Spirou magazine. He also made two episodes of Tif et Tondu. He was a part of the so-called Marcinelle School, influenced by Jijé and André Franquin.
Spip is a fictional Eurasian red squirrel and a main character in the Belgian comic strip Spirou et Fantasio. He is Spirou's pet and was the first recurring supporting character in the series.
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