Posted in: Comics | Tagged: disney, François Corteggiani, pif, rip, Yoiung Blueberry

French Comics Creator François Corteggiani Passes Away, Aged 69

François Corteggiani was a prodigious French comic book writer, editor and artist who studied art, and worked in advertising and illustration before creating his first comic in 1974 for SEPP, drawing over a thousand pages for the Lyon publisher, and then Mucheroum for Spirou magazine. Along with Michel Motti, he drew the BD comic Pif le chien for the longstanding Pif Gadget comic book anthology as well as creating Disney comic book stories for Le Journal de Mickey, writing over 1500 stories for the publisher since 1984.

François Corteggiani also write many historical comic books including Silence et de Sang with Marc Malès, and after the death of Jean-Michel Charlier in 1989, he was chosen to continue writing the Young Blueberry comic book stories with Colin Wilson and Michel Blanc-Dumont for Novedi and Dargaud. And for Soleil Productions, created a number of new series including the  such as L'Horus de Nékhen, L'Archer Blanc, Yakuza, Saïto, Les Ombres de la Lagune and aviation western Thunderhawks, with his Young Blueberry artist Colin Wilson, as well as Crin Blanc, Tatiana K, Les Bonheurs d'Agathe, Raimond le Carthare, Simon Nian and Francis Falko for other publishers.

François Corteggiani was made editor-in-chief of the relaunched Pif Gadget magazine in 2004, created many new Pif stories for the magazine, and worked on a number of stories for the comic publisher. In 2015, he was convicted for having caricatured Hervé de Lépinau, a lawyer and local representative of the National Front party, as a rabbit, after a satirical newspaper was printed and distributed locally – only 85 copies –  two days before the municipal election. Supported by Charlie Hebdo and L'Humanité, he was fined 7500 Euros for breaching electoral law. He died at the end of September the day after his 69th birthday.

Jean-Marc Lofficier of Hexagon Comics tells me "Somewhat unfairly, the only story of his published in English, as far as I know. the return of the Bronze Gladiator, was published by Hexagon Comics and translated by yours truly for our Strangers 0: Omens & Origins collection. François wrote that story in the early 2000s, but I had met him a few years before when he had more than capably stepped into the late, great Jean-Michel Charlier's shoes to pen the continuation of the Young Blueberry series, illustrated first by Colin Wilson, then Michel Blanc-Dumont. I confess I don't know if I would have dared to tackle such a challenge, and I'm 100% certain that not only did François do a much better job than I would have done, but he did it better than virtually any other writer I can think of. For Hexagon Comics, François also wrote a few Zemblas, but his favorite series of mine was when he took over Gallix with artist Cebe, and crafted a truly wonderful epic story. Gallix being in effect a dead serious Asterix without the magic portion, that wasn't such an easy job either, and he pulled it off remarkably. You can — should — check François' vast bibliography on Wikipedia, it is an amazing and prodigious list. He was also a very funny writer and a talented cartoonist. In 2015, he even got into trouble for writing and drawing a vitriolic strip about a local far-right politico. Bold, brave, funny, prolific, a born storyteller, François will be greatly missed by everyone in the French comics industry."

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!