Jean Roba

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Jean Roba (July 28, 1930 - June 14, 2006) was a Belgian comics author from the Marcinelle school. His best-known work is Boule et Bill.

1 Biography
2 Bibliography
3 Awards
4 Notes
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Jean Roba was born in Schaarbeek, Belgium.^[1] In his youth, he was a reader of French magazines like Robinson and Mickey, which featured mainly American comics. One of those that was especially influential on Roba was Katzenjammer Kids.^[2] After working as an illustrator for different magazines and publicity agencies, he started to work as an illustrator for Spirou in 1957, where he made small cartoons for the front page for a few years. He also worked on Bonnes Soirées, another magazine from the same publisher Dupuis, where he continued the series Sa majesté mon mari after Albert Uderzo stopped.^[2] For Spirou, he made a few short stories with Yvan Delporte and collaborated on different stories of Spirou et Fantasio with André Franquin, who taught him the basics of making comics, before starting his own main series Boule et Bill in 1959, initially with stories by Maurice Rosy.^[2] Next to this series of mainly one page comics, he started in 1962 La Ribambelle, a series of 6 long stories about a group of kids.^[1]

Roba was both an artist and an author, and wrote most of his own gags for Boule et Bill, while others contributed stories for La Ribambelle. He handed over the drawing of Boule et Bill to Laurent Verron after more than a 1000 pages. His work has been translated in fourteen languages and has sold in excess of 25 million copies.^[1] He lived in Jette from 1951 until his death in Brussels in 2006.

In 2005 he ended on nr. 100 in the Walloon version of the election for De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian).

[edit] Bibliography

Boule et Bill, 21 albums, Dupuis and 4 albums, Dargaud
La Ribambelle, 6 albums, Dupuis, with stories by Vicq, Yvan Delporte and Maurice Tillieux
Spirou et Fantasio, 2 albums Dupuis with André Franquin

[edit] Awards

1978: Best foreign comical work at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, France
1981: Best comic for 9 to 12 years old at the Angoulême International Comics Festival
1992: Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, France^[2]

Roba was also a Knight in the Order of Léopold.^[2]

[edit] Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c De Weyer, Geert (2005). "Roba". In België gestript, pp. 151-152. Tielt: Lannoo.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Roba, Jean [October 1999]. Bollie & Billie vieren feest (comic book), 1st edition (in Dutch), Brussels: Dargaud, 48. ISBN 90-6793-515-8. Retrieved on February 16, 2007.