Régis Loisel

Régis Loisel is a contemporary cartoonist. Winner of the Grand Prix of Angoulême in 2003, he is the author of great French sagas such as The Quest for the Time Bird (1983) or Peter Pan (1990).

Artist's website

Exhibitions

© Julia Delhomme

His biography

Régis Loisel, born in 1951 in Saint-Maixant, developed a passion for animation at a very young age when he crossed paths with a well-known mouse: Mickey Mouse. He then began to draw animal characters from cartoons of all kinds. This first love did not leave him, but as a teenager, he discovered Mad magazine and got interested in the 9th Art.

At the University of Vincennes, he attended meetings dealing with comic techniques led by Jean-Claude Mézières. That is where he met Patrick Cothias and Serge Le Tendre with whom he undertook a fruitful collaboration. He walked his first steps in 1973 in the magazines Pilote, Mormoil, Pif Gadget, Tousse Bourin, Plop, Fluide Glacial and Métal Hurlant. During this time, he published illustrations for the press, publishing and advertising. At that time, his works were already recognizable thanks to his extremely researched style, arboring a multitude of details. In 1975, he published the first pages of The Quest for the Bird of Time in the science fiction magazine Imagine, based on a screenplay by Serge Le Tendre. “La Conque de Ramor” was published in 1983 by Dargaud and impacted a whole generation of Franco-Belgian comics: this first volume marked the birth of the heroic fantasy genre in France. In 1998, still with Le Tendre, he began the second part of this adventure as co-screenwriter, leaving the execution of the illustrations to other artists.

After his dive into the heroic fantasy genre, Régis Loisel took part, at the beginning of the 1990s, to the adaptation of Peter Pan, a masterful interpretation of the tale by James Matthew Barrie. The sixth and final volume of which was published in 2004. Between two huge successes such as The Quest for the bird of time and Peter Pan, he makes incursions – in script or drawing – in very diverse genres: youth, eroticism, humor, travel diary, etc. In 2003, the Grand Prix d'Angoulême crowned Régis Loisel.

From 2006, he co-signed Magasin Général with Jean-Louis Tripp, a series that follows the inhabitants of the small Canadian village of Notre-Dame-des-Lacs in the late 1920s. This canadian adventure lasts nine years, a time during which he also scripted Le Grand Mort, a fantasy series which depicts an apocalyptic threat. With Café Zombo, released in 2016, the circle is complete: Régis Loisel paid tribute to the character who founded his career through an album that integrates the Disney/Glénat collection.

However, Loisel has not finished surprising us. This retrospective will allow people to rediscover the artist, through a completely new lens as it exhibits a totally different technique. Textures, dazzling colors and close-ups are the ingredients of the recipe for a unique set of pastels on wood.