Victor Hubinon

Born in 1924 in Belgium, Victor Hubinon studied at the Academy of Fine Arts before becoming a photo engraver for the daily newspaper La Wallonie. In 1946, while working as an illustrator at La Meuse, he met journalist Georges Troisfontaines. Dreaming of creating an American-style news agency—the future World’s Press—Troisfontaine assembled a dynamic duo: Victor Hubinon and Jean-Michel Charlier (Barbe-Rouge, Blueberry, Tanguy and Laverdure). Troisfontaines began writing the first Buck Danny adventures. After about fifteen pages drawn by Hubinon, Charlier joined the project, taking over the script for this iconic series, which sold nearly 20 million albums over fifty years. Hubinon dabbled in humor with a few gags in Rik Junior (1947), Fifi (1951), an episode of The New Adventures of Blondin and Cirage (1947), and Pistolin (1955). It was in the realist vein that Hubinon would make his mark, combining his graphic precision with dynamic composition. Alongside Buck Danny, he created several stories with his longtime collaborator: Tarawa: Atoll sanglant (1948), Surcouf (1949), Stanley (1953, with Octave Joly), and Mermoz (1955). His Barbe-Rouge saga, which has since become a classic, graced the opening pages of the brand-new Pilote magazine starting in 1959. Alternating between comic art and surrealist painting, Hubinon continually pushed the boundaries of his artistic practice. In 1978, he moved away from Barbe-Rouge and created a highly personal character, La Mouette, a female pirate whose adventures were published in Le Journal de Spirou. Unfortunately, her maritime adventures came to an end after just one album following the death of her creator, on January 9, 1979.