At the Belgian Comics Art Museum From 13 June 2017 until 28 January 2018 ZIDROU A scriptwriter and his accomplices Zidrou (Benoît Drousie) began his career as a teacher. He then caught the writing bug and in 1992 he collaborated on the scenario's of 'Sac à Puces' and he began writing satirical strips for the character Ducobu, the worst pupil in the world, for Tremplin, a weekly magazine aimed at school children. He contributed to Spirou from 1993 to 2001 and his characters included the Crannibales, the Boss and Tamara, a young teenager who was determined that her rather rotund figure would not stop her having a rosy future too. But behind the persona of this successful humourist scriptwriter lies a humanistic author who fills drawer upon drawer with highly emotive original scripts. The Comic Strip Museum has chosen to celebrate this multi- talented scriptwriter, who uncovered a whole new generation of talented illustrators from Spain, where he lives, alongside his many illustrators. Exhibition curators: JC De la Royère and Mélanie Andrieu. With the Support of the Brussels-Capital Region Comics Art Museum Rue des Sables, 20 - 1000 Brussels (Belgium) Open every day from 10 a.m. till 6 p.m. Tel: +32 22 19 19 80 - www.comicscenter.net - [email protected] Press info: Willem De Graeve: [email protected] - +32 (0)2 210 04 33 Press images: www.comicscenter.net/en/press, login: comics + password: smurfs ZIDROU A SCRIPTWRITER AND HIS ACCOMPLICES An exhibition of the Belgian Comics Art Museum With the support of the Brussels-Capital Region Curators of the exhibition: Mélanie Andrieu – JC De la Royère Texts : Mélanie Andrieu – JC De la Royère Scenography : Jean Serneels Translation : Philotrans Translation Office Copy-editing : Tine Anthoni and Marie-Aude Piavaux Production follow up: The girls at the end of the corridor Management of original artwork : Nathalie Geirnaert and Dimitri Bogaert Framing : AP Frame, Marie Van Eetvelde Legends: Mélanie Andrieu – JC De la Royère Audiovisuals : Manuel Fernandez Graphics : Pierre Saysouk Printing : Sadocolor Production and setting up: Jean Serneels and the team of the Comics Art Museum Communication : Valérie Constant, Willem De Graeve and Marie-Aude Piavaux Photos : Daniel Fouss The Belgian Comics Art Museum would like to thank Laurence Convers, Marie-Odile Delvigne, Elise Harou, Julie Lenders, Claude Maltaite, Jocelyne Vanderlinden, Clotilde Vu, Coraline Walravens David Barbe, Luc Cromheecke, Yves Declercq, Olivier Dossogne, Benoît Fripiat, Kevin Giraud, Jonathan Lambert, Jean-Jacques Procureur, Thierry Tinlot, Mathias Vincent, for their support, as well the concerned publishing houses and the authors who agreed to lend their works. Bercovici/Zidrou, Le Boss, Dupuis The exhibition texts (© Mélanie Andrie and JC De La Royère, Belgian Comics Art Museum 2017) 0. General Introduction How does a young Belgian primary school teacher, who is trained to teach little children, become the scriptwriter that illustrators and publishers can only imagine in their wildest dreams, regardless of whether they are well-versed in comedy or in legendary fantasy? Benoît Drousie – also known as Zidrou – was born in Anderlecht in 1962, and has become a hugely successful author, without ever denying what has made him great; a teacher with a sense of responsibility and a caring personality, a talented storyteller, who is just brimming with wit, humour and imagination… Zidrou, a primary school teacher by training and by profession, initially focused on younger children by working on magazines for the under-tens in his capacity as sub-editor. He subsequently wrote scripts for three comic strip series, including ‘Sac à Puces’, a family comic strip in which his teaching talent really came to the fore by advocating tolerance, generosity, and living peacefully side by side. At this publishing house, he later also devised the character ‘L’élève Ducobu’, a comedy series that had ended up travelling all around the world. Zidrou then decided to concentrate on writing comedy scripts. Not that that required any special effort on his part as humour is really second nature to him. In the weekly comic ‘Spirou’, he could ply his trade to his heart’s content, coming up with countless laugh-out-loud scripts, thoroughly participating in the whole publishing process, for which he devised some spectacular pranks. For that magazine he also created Tamara - a lovely teenager troubled by quite a few issues – and who enabled Zidrou to express all of his humanity, through gags featuring teenagers that are very true to life. Along that same line of thinking, he subsequently conjured up ‘Mèche rebelle’ that paved the way for new horizons. When Zidrou moved to Spain, he gained the acquaintance of a local graphic artist, Jordi Lafevre, who introduced him to a hotbed of young Andalusian and Catalan graphic artists. The latter were only too keen to let their talent shine bright. In view of his fame, publishers’ doors were always open to Zidrou, which gave him the opportunity to come up with stories in which he could explore human nature. Through his work, Zidrou introduced a whole new wave of Spanish graphic artists, who were immediately embraced by the French-speaking Belgian readership – the most promising market in Europe. Zidrou, aided and abetted by his graphic artists, then revealed himself as a modern sensitive author, with the ability to move his readers to tears. Covering the entire spectrum, from laughter to tears, from comedy gags to realistic storylines, Zidrou has grown into a highly acclaimed author with a writing style of the most exacting standard and boundless imagination. The Comics Art Museum is immensely proud to exhibit his work and to bring his personality to the fore. JC De la Royère and Mélanie Andrieu, Exhibition curators 1. The Adventures of Zidrou and Falzar It was in 1990 when Benoît Drousie alias ‘Zidrou’ moved into rue des Gades in Mons. François Dhont alias ‘Falzar’ lived just two houses down the road, and the two of them soon became inseparable. They were both fanatic about comics, and could often be found perusing the shelves of the bookshop ‘Rive Gauche’ in Mons, which was a shrine to alternative literature. Every Sunday they would meet up at the flea market - earlier and earlier, just to be sure to be the first on the spot - where they would raid the comic book stands. They soon came up with the idea of writing comedy scripts. So they forwarded their first attempts at writing to the comic strip magazine Spirou, and Patrick Pinchart, the then Chief Editor, replied that he had no interest in their schoolboy humour ('humour de potaches' to quote Pinchart). They immediately seized upon the word 'potache', and devised the rhyming slogan: “Zidrou et Falzar, les rois du scénar” [Zidrou and Falzar, the kings of scriptwriting]. They set up their co-operative partnership in October 1991. The articles of association published in the Official Belgian Gazette specifically stated that the two partners “will be able to have fun and even burst out laughing” in the course of their work. Zidrou, a young primary school teacher, was working as a sub-editor at the publishing house Averbode that published the children’s magazines ‘Dorémi’, ‘Bonjour’, ‘Dauphin’ and ‘Tremplin’. For ‘Bonjour’ the so-called ‘Potaches’ supplied the Antwerp-based graphic artist, Hugo Van Look, with the silent scripts for ‘Lou and Loulou’, the two very tender-aged characters and stars of this comic magazine for very young children. 2. Margot and Sac à Puces In 1992 the ‘Potaches’ started writing the ‘Margot et Oscar Pluche’ stories, which were published by Casterman in comic book form. This was the story of little Margot, the fifth child of a family of six (soon seven) children, who took Oscar Pluche, a stray dog - alias ‘Sac à Puces’ ( Fleabag) - under her wing. The series was initially launched by Carine De Brabanter in ‘Jet’, a short-lived magazine by Editions du Lombard, the purpose of which was to bring new talent into the limelight. Zidrou and Falzar were immediately captivated by the story, and offered their services to the graphic artist. Just in the nick of time too! Carine was brimming with ideas, but was no scriptwriter. She bit the bullet, and decided to continue the series with the ‘Potaches’. In 1999, and six comic books later, the series was taken over by Dupuis (and in Spirou) under the name of ‘Sac à Puces’. Margot, who adopts Oscar Pluche against her parents’ wishes, becomes best friends with this big orange talking dog. This highly entertaining and funny series also has an educational purpose. The authors tackle serious topics, such as love, motherhood, separation, loneliness, old age and death, and also values, such as diversity, mutual respect, and living peacefully side by side. From the very first series, Zidrou sends out his message of tolerance. He just cannot stop himself from touching upon this topic, regardless of the subject matter of his work. 3. Cheating Ducoboo In 1992, the ‘Potaches’ were put in charge of a column in Tremplin (Clin d'oeil), a comedy page which they used to write jokes illustrated by a certain Godi (Bernard Godisiabois). The character by the name of Ducoboo turns up time and time again from the start of school in September. He is a real nuisance of a boy, who is constantly copying from the girl sitting right next to him in class. The character was abandoned after just a few cartoons, but the readership was keen to know more about Ducoboo. Hence, the series was rekindled, and even turned into a fully-fledged comic strip story. At the end of the year, Ducoboo, a primary school pupil, is severely punished by his teacher.