Robert Gigi (29 July 1926 – 3 February 2007) was a French

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...

and

archivist An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist can cons ...

Biography

Gigi was born in

Besançon Besançon (, ; , ; archaic ; ) is the capital of the Departments of France, department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerland. Capi ...

. He began working in the

art studio A studio is a space set aside for creative work of any kind, including art, dance, music and theater. The word ''studio'' is derived from the , from , from ''studere'', meaning to study or zeal. Types Art The studio of any artist, esp ...

Raymond Poïvet Raymond Poïvet (17 June 1910 – 30 August 1999) was a French cartoonist. Biography Poïvet was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Nord. After studies at Beaux-Arts de Paris, he started in comics in 1941. In 1945 he joined the communist French ...

while a student. He created his first

comic a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicat ...

in 1948, calling himself Bob Gigi. Gigi worked for the Paris-Graphic

press agency A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswi ...

, which was also known as Fabiola. He also worked for the

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

s ''L'Aurore'' and ''Les Aventuriers d'Aujourd'hui''. Gigi eventually joined the

Société Parisienne d'Édition Groupe Lactalis S.A. (doing business as Lactalis) is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier S.A. Lactalis is the largest dairy pr ...

(SPE) in 1951, remaining until 1980. When he was a part of the Société, his works were published in L'Épatant, Fillette, and Pschitt Adventures. In 1967

Éric Losfeld Éric Losfeld (Mouscron, 9 March 1922 – Paris, 18 November 1979) was a Belgian-born French publisher who had a reputation for publishing controversial material with his publishing imprint Éditions Le Terrain Vague. He was the publisher of '' ...

published his controversial erotic adventure comic Scarlett Dream, a book that shares a lot of similarities with

Jean-Claude Forest Jean-Claude Forest (11 September 1930 – 30 December 1998) was a French writer and illustrator of comics and the creator of character Barbarella. Biography Jean-Claude Forest was born in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, a Paris suburb and graduated ...

s Barbarella comic book. Gigi started a fantasy series in 1970 called Agar, which was

published Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

in Il Corrieri dei Ragazzi. He began to work as a comics

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

at the School of Fine Arts in

Angoulême Angoulême (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Engoulaeme''; ) is a small city in the southwestern French Departments of France, department of Charente, of which it is the Prefectures of France, prefecture. Located on a plateau overlooking a meander of ...

in the 1980s. In 1991, Gigi retired and began

sculpting Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

. After a long illness, he died in 2007 in

Puteaux Puteaux () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the heart of the Hauts-de-Seine department, from the centre of Paris. La Défense, Paris's business district hosting the tallest buildings in the metropolitan ...

Bibliography

* Scarlett Dream - 5 albums in French * Le sablier vert * Captain Fulgur * Ugaki

References

1926 births 2007 deaths French comics writers French comics artists French erotic artists French male sculptors {{France-artist-stub