European comics was rocked this past week following the news that Belgian comics auteur Hermann had died March 22, age 87, following a two year battle with cancer. The news went beyond specialised comics outlets, being widely reported in national newspapers across France, Belgium, and beyond. The Brussels Book Fair held a special tribute on March 29, and a ceremony for fans and mourners will take place April 1.
His former publishers Dupuis and Lombard delivered the news, with Le Lombard saying,
“It is with pain and sadness that Le Lombard regrets to announce the death of Hermann. A pillar of European comics…Le Lombard extend their heartfelt condolences to Hermann’s family, friends, and loved ones, especially his wife and his son Yves H., who was also his scriptwriter and closest collaborator. More broadly, the world of comics and all lovers of the 9th art have just lost a truly great author.”
French newspaper Le Figaro wrote, “He was good-natured, cheerful, and ever outspoken. It is with deep sorrow and sadness that we learn of the death of the great Belgian cartoonist Hermann.”
Libération described him as “a pillar of Tintin magazine and the Franco-Belgian comics scene“.
Brussels Times called him a “cherished cartoonist”
Across a career spanning sixty years, Hermann produced around 120 albums of material – and the quality of both his art and storytelling made him a multi-award winner. He received somewhere in the region of thirty distinctions – including France’s Chevalier (Knight) in the Order of Arts and Letters in 2009, and the Angoulême Grand Prix in 2016. He was a major figure of the realism strand of Belgian comics, breaking away from the simplification of Hergé’s ligne claire and Jijé’s Marcinelle school, and was a later proponent of direct colouring (colouring direct to the page instead of using colour sheets).
Born July 17, 1938 in the Belgian town of Bévercé, Hermann Huppen entered comics in his mid-twenties, adopting the creative mononym ‘Hermann’. His artistic training came from his time studying architecture and decorative illustration at Saint-Gilles Academy of Fine Arts, Brussels, while working as an apprentice furniture maker and interior architect. His professional debut as a comics artist came via a short story for Spirou magazine, following which comics writer Greg (real name Michel Regnier) took him under his wing. From this partnership came multiple classic series, in particular the travelling adventures of Bernard Prince (1966) and the frontier western Comanche (1969), the latter of which was Journal de Tintin’s answer to Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud’s Blueberry in French magazine Pilote, and Jijé’s long-running serial Jerry Spring in Spirou.
In the 1970s, Hermann shifted to a solo career, producing stories that were often politically charged – reflecting a growing sense of contempt and outrage toward humanity. His most famous solo series was the post-apocalyptic Jeremiah, which debuted in 1977. It takes place in a devastated America, twenty years after racial violence escalated into civil war, and follows a young man who travels through the wasteland. J. Michael Straczynski produced a loose adaptation of the series for Showtime which ran for two seasons between 2002 and 2004 (sidestepping the contentious political aspect) and the comic has drawn comparisons to George Miller’s Mad Max film franchise, which began in 1979 (some fans claiming Jeremiah may have been a direct inspiration).
Hermann would also intermittently work on solo standalones such as Sarajevo-Tango (1995), and start other series, such as medieval saga The Towers of Bois-Maury (Les Tours de Bois-Maury). From 2000, he regularly collaborated with his son, comics writer Yves Huppen (Yves H.). Together they would do series and standalones, including the western Duke. Their last work together, the one shot Cartagena, is set to be released April 30.
Translated intermittently in English, most recent were omnibus editions of Jeremiah copublished by Dark Horse Books and Strip Art Features, released between 2012 to 2013 (now out of print), and Europe Comics’ digital-exclusive release of Comanche‘s opening volumes in 2017.
