Archyde
By Archyde
August 20, 2021
BD screenwriter Raoul Cauvin died Thursday August 19. VINCENT HOPER / DUPUIS EDITIONS
He was the author of Les Tuniques Bleues, of Funerary stone, from Women in white or even Cédric. Belgian comic book writer Raoul Cauvin died Thursday August 19, three months after revealing to be suffering from incurable cancer, announced Dupuis, his publishing house.
“It is with immense emotion that we inform you of the death of Raoul Cauvin, one of the greatest men in the world of comics. We are in thought with (…) the millions of readers who adored his humor and his situational comedy through the publication of his series”, the editor said early Friday in a press release.
Raoul Cauvin was born on September 26, 1938 in Antoing, near the French border, the same year the magazine was created. Spirou, where he would later publish his plates. He studied advertising lithography at the Institut Saint-Luc in Tournai, one of the most renowned art schools in Belgium. “When entering working life, [il avait découvert] that this profession no longer existed! writes his editor. He then experimented with a whole series of small trades, in particular a job in a billiard ball factory. “
In 1960, he joined Éditions Dupuis, as letterer and then as cameraman in the “cartoons” department, where he remained for seven years. “It was during this period that he discovered his passion for screenplay, which Charles Dupuis himself offered to try out”, tell the editions of the same name.
The screenwriter has collaborated with many writers throughout his career, but it is especially with Willy Lambil that he knows success by making Les Tuniques Bleues one of Dupuis’ absolute bestsellers, with over fifteen million copies sold in French.
This successful series tells with humor the adventures of two American soldiers, a convinced militarist and another committed in spite of himself, who fight the “Southerners” during the American Civil War (1861-1865). He had created the Les Tuniques Bleues in 1968, eight years after his debut at Dupuis, first conceiving his two heroes, Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch, with the designer Louis Salvérius, who died in 1972 and gave way to Willy Lambil.
The latter remains Cauvin’s inseparable accomplice until volume 64, the last album signed by the screenwriter, released by Dupuis editions in May. These two veterans were nicknamed “Comic book grandpas”, with the same graying mustache. “Forty years after our debut, we are in the third generation of readers. It’s wonderful to think that the same album can be read by a grandfather, a father and his children”, Raoul Cauvin was enthusiastic then.
“Popular, irresistibly funny, unexpected”
“Rare are Cauvin’s failures, because his imagination, the quality of his dialogues and the profession put into his cuttings speak directly to the general public, to whom he feels extremely close. (…) A genius of incredible modesty, Raoul Cauvin has become a veritable statue of a commander of screenwriters. Popular, irresistibly funny, unexpected, able to shine in most of the universes he has chosen for himself, he has durably codified the mechanics of the gag and the canons of the humorous adventure, seducing several generations of readers and selling more than 50 million albums”, writes Dupuis.
The popular success of Les Tuniques Bleues pushed Raoul Cauvin to become a prolific author for his publisher Dupuis, collaborating with many other designers: among others Berck (Sammy et Lou), Thread (Spirou and Fantasio) or Kox (L’Agent 212).
At the beginning, at the turn of the 1970s, the Belgian screenwriter worked with Claire Bretécher (1940-2020) on The shipwrecked, whose plates were first published in Spirou’s journal.
A follower of all forms of visual gagging, Cauvin evolved in the 1980s towards more incisive productions, often close to black humor and parody. He thus illustrated himself in the series Funerary stone (with Hardy), Women in white on the universe of the hospital (with Bercovici in the drawing), and Cédric (with Laudec) – which has proven to be a success in children’s comics with 34 albums to date.
Between 1990 and 2009, he signed with the designer William Tai, alias Malik (who died in December 2020), 21 albums of Cupid, a figure borrowed from Roman mythology, shooting his arrows of love through and through.
In early May, a few days after the release of the last Les Tuniques Bleues, Cauvin had announced on his blog that he was suffering from incurable cancer. “The oncologist is categorical. A few more months to live before going up there to join all those who came before me. It had to happen to me one day too”, he wrote.
The world
CAUVIN, Raoul
Born: 9/26/1938, Antoing, Wallonia, Belgium
Died: 8/19/1921, Nivelles, Wallonia, Belgium
Raoul Caivin’s westerns – cartoonist:
Les Tuniques Bleues – 1958-
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