Edgar Pierre Jacobs

One of the founding fathers of the European comic movement was Edgar Pierre Jacobs, creator of the legendary 'Blake & Mortimer' series. Jacobs had an early fascination for both drawing and music, and started out doing some illustration work for shop catalogues. At the same time, he also found his way in the theatre world. For example, he played alongside Mistinguett in the Casino de Paris show and he was a lyricist at the Opéra de Lille. In 1940 he left the theatre scene and joined Bravo! magazine the year after. There, he illustrated novels and tales. In 1942 he drew episodes of Alex Raymond's 'Flash Gordon' series, because the American pages couldn't reach Belgium during the War. German censorship forbid the strip after only a couple of weeks.

Edgar P. Jacobs then began a science-fiction comic of his own in 1943, titled 'Le Rayon U'. His work was noticed by Hergé, who immediately hired him to help at the restyling of his Tintin albums. Jacobs worked on the backgrounds and colors on most of the early restyled 'Tintin' comics. Jacobs was present in the early days of Tintin magazine, with 'Le Secret de l'Espadon', the first episode of the 'Blake & Mortimer' series. He got the inspiration for this series while doing 'Flash Gordon' in Bravo!, and wanted to make a realistic detective science-fiction comic of his own.

Because of its painstaking realism, 'Blake and Mortimer' was a worthy equivalent to the Tintin series from its start. That is why Jacobs stopped his cooperation with Hergé in 1947 to give his full attention to his own series. Jacobs produced eight big adventures of 'Blake & Mortimer' until 1972, which have all become classics. In 1973 he restyled his own 'Rayon U' comic and wrote his memoires. He then wrote the scenario for the second episode of 'Les Trois Formules du Professeur Sato', but the artwork remained unfinished. It was Bob de Moor who finished the album after Jacob's death.