Jean-Pierre Gibrat

Born in 1954 in Paris, Jean-Pierre Gibrat published his first comic strips between 1978 and 1981, featuring Goudard based on scripts by Jackie Berroyer. In late 1982, again collaborating with Berroyer, he illustrated La Parisienne, which would later cross paths with Goudard. In the 1990s, with Guy Vidal and later Dominique Leguillier, he contributed to books for Doctors Without Borders and their missions in Thailand, Africa, and Guatemala. In 1995, he ventured into erotic comic art with Pinocchia (script by Francis Leroi, a story previously published in L’Écho des Savanes).

In 1997, in the Aire Libre collection from Dupuis, he published the first volume of the two-part series (completed in 1999) Le Sursis, for which he served as both writer and artist, and which was an incredible success. Julien Sarlat, who observes life in a village in the Aveyron in 1943—a character to whom fate has only granted one reprieve—and his Cécile, won over readers.

Following in the footsteps of Le Sursis, and in the same series three years later, Gibrat delivered a lavishly colored story, Le Vol du Corbeau, featuring the young resistance fighter Jeanne and the burglar François in occupied Paris. The sequel and conclusion was published in 2005.

On January 26, 2006, Jean-Pierre Gibrat was awarded the Art Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival for the second volume of Le Vol du corbeau. This marked a major shift for the series, as Jean-Pierre Gibrat began writing his own stories, proving to be an exceptional storyteller and dialogue writer. And it was by writing for himself that he dared to push his art further—now more elegantly refined—and infused his colors with a captivating richness.

The third period begins with the publication of Mattéo, Book One: 1914–1915 by Futuropolis, in October 2008. Never before had Jean-Pierre Gibrat imbued his writing with such brilliance. His artwork is no less impressive, freeing itself more than ever from the heaviness of inking, freer in its expression, just like his colors. He strips away the superfluous to focus on the essential: the narrative, the meaning, and the light.

In 2010, he received the Grand Boum—the most prestigious award at the Blois Comic Book Festival—for his entire body of work, after having been awarded the Silver Boar in 2003, as the best comic artist in the framework of the Albert Uderzo Prize.