Born on July 3, 1920, Paape started out as an animator working at the Compagnie Belge d'Actualités studios in 1940 with his friends and colleagues Pierre Culliford (Peyo, creator of 'The Smurfs') and Maurice de Bevere (Morris, author of 'Lucky Luke'), Andre Franquin, who would later draw Spirou ('Robbedoes') and Gaston ('Guust Flater') also joined in. The team of friends would later become Europe's most treasured comic artists.
After WWII Paape joined publisher Dupuis and collaborated with Joseph Gillain (better known as Jijé) on his detective comic series 'Jean Valhardi' or 'Les aventures de Jean Valhardi' (published as 'Jan Kordaat' in the Netherlands), which he would later take over from him with writer Jean-Michel Charlier until 1954.
Above: Beautiful classic cover and original artwork from 'Le Chateau Maudit', the third book in the series published in 1953 (click to enlarge).
The collaboration with Charlier resulted in another comic series for 'Spirou magazine' about the traveling adventurer/reporter 'Marc Dacier' (known as 'Flip Flink' in Dutch) which resulted in 13 books, published between 1960 and 1982. In 1966 Paape and comic author Michel Regnier aka 'Greg' started working for Spirou's competitor, 'Tintin' magazine and created a new hero within the scifi genre: Luc Orient. It was inspired by their love for the classic daily newspaper comic strips of 'Brick Bradford' by William Ritt and Clarene Gray, published in the United States since 1933 until April 1987 (after 1952 the strip was continued by Paul Norris, who had earlier worked on Alex Raymond's 'Jungle Jim'). Between 1969 and 1994, 18 comic books were created and published. William Vance also collaborated with Paape and Greg, and contributed artwork for the covers of books 7-10 in a more realistic approach. Volume 17, 'Les Spores de Nul Parts' contained four stories, including 'Mission en 2012' which was co-written by André-Paul Duchâteau ('Ric Hochet') and Andreas Martens.
The collaboration between Duchateau and Paape continued, and let to various other comic books, like 'Yorik' in 1975 and 'Udolfo' ('La Montre aux 7 Rubis') in 1980, while Greg and Paape reunited in 1992 for 'Johnny Congo' an adventure story that would spawn two books between 1992 and 1993: 'La Riviere Ecarlate' ('De Rode Rivier' or 'The Red River') and 'La flèche des ténèbres' ('De Pijl van de Duisternis' aka 'The Arrow of Darkness').
Above: cover and original for the fourth book in Paape's comic series 'Marc Dacier', 'Les Secrets de la mer de Corail', published in 1962 (click to enlarge).
Below: Three great men in 1955: writer Jean-Michel Charlier (left), Eddy Paape (middle) and publisher Georges Troisfontaines (right). Paape would often help out and actually created multiple pages for comic book series Charlier created with Victor Hunbinon, like 'Barbe Rouge' (about the pirate 'Red Beard') and 'Buck Danny', a fighter pilot in the Pacific during WWII. Troisfontaines was one of the first editors of comic magazine 'Spirou' and also co-authored the first story of 'Buck Danny', 'Les Japs Attaquent' ('The Japs attack') in 1946.
Eddy Paape will be surely missed, but his fiction and fantasy comic stories will live on and will continue to please readers for a long time coming. I'm thinking he joined up with his old buddies up there, who went on before him, and is enjoying a fine glass of wine. I know I will, so here's to you Eddy, Cheers!
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