Étienne Davodeau (born October 19, 1965), is a French comic book artist and writer.

Life and career

Davodeau was born in Botz-en-Mauges into a working-class family, as he explains in ''Les Mauvaises Gens'', a book that retraces his parents' youth: born in 1942, they began working in local industry at the ages of 13 and 14 and became members of the

Young Christian Workers The Young Christian Workers (YCW; ) is an international youth organization founded by the Catholic priest Joseph Cardijn in Belgium as the Young Trade Unionists. The organization adopted its present name in 1924. Is it regarded as the most influent ...

, of the

French Confederation of Christian Workers The French Confederation of Christian Workers (; CFTC) is one of the five major French confederation of trade unions, belonging to the social Christian tradition. It was founded in 1919 as the Trade Union of Employees of Industry and Commerce ...

then unionists of the

French Democratic Confederation of Labour The French Democratic Confederation of Labour (, CFDT) is a national trade union center, one of the five major French confederations of trade unions, led since 2023 by . It is the second largest French trade union confederation by number of memb ...

. After his

baccalauréat The ''baccalauréat'' (; ), often known in France colloquially as the ''bac'', is a French national academic qualification that students can obtain at the completion of their secondary education (at the end of the ''lycée'') by meeting certain ...

, Davodeau studied at the

University of Rennes 2 Rennes 2 University (UR2; , officially Université Rennes-II Haute-Bretagne) is a public university located in Upper Brittany, France. It is one of the four universities of the Academy of Rennes. The main campus is situated in the northwest of ...

(department of visual arts); he then founded, with other comics enthusiasts, including his future collaborators Joub and Jean-Luc Simon, the studio Psurd.. He published his first album, ''L'Homme qui n'aimait pas les arbres'', in 1992, in the collection for young authors, "Génération Dargaud.. In 2011, he published the comic album ''Les Ignorants (The Initiates)'', the story of his initiation to the work of winemaking and his exchanges with the winegrower. In 2016, the cartoonists Fleur Godart and Justine Saint-Lô follow the same approach for their book Pur jus, about natural wines. He won two years in a row the France Info Prize for comics journalism: in 2006 for ''Les Mauvaises Gens'' : une histoire de militants, and the following year for ''Un homme est mort'', written with Kris. In 2013, he was awarded the "Grand Boum-Ville de Blois" prize by the bd BOUM festival, for the whole of his work. That same year, his two-volume comic album ''Lulu femme nue (Lulu Anew)'', published in 2008 and 2010, received a film adaptation of the same name directed by

Sólveig Anspach Sólveig Anspach (8 December 1960 – 7 August 2015) was an Icelandic-French film director and screenwriter. Born to a German-Romanian father Gerhard Anspach and an Icelandic mother Högna Sigurðardóttir, she spent most of her life living ...

. In 2015, the film was nominated to a

César Award for Best Adaptation The César Award for Best Adaptation () is an award presented by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma. It was initially awarded from 1983 to 1985, and then awarded again in 2006, when the original category (César Award for Best Original ...

in the occasion of the

40th César Awards The 40th César Awards ceremony, presented by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma, honoured the best 2014 in film, films of 2014 in France and took place on 20 February 2015 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The ceremony was chai ...

. In 2014, he directed with Benoît Collombat a series of reports, pre-published in La Revue Dessinée. The first episode, ''Mort d'un juge,'' is about the assassination of Judge François Renaud in 1975. The album ''Cher pays de notre enfance'', published in 2015, is described as an investigation into the leaden years of the Fifth Republic. Since the late 1990s, Étienne Davodeau lives at Rablay-sur-Layon (Maine-et-Loire) ; he was elected councilman from 2014. to 2016.

Notes and references

External links

Official site (in French)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davodeau, Etienne Living people 1965 births French comics artists Rennes 2 University alumni