Raymond Macherot

Raymond Macherot is a master in poetic and satirical animal comics, as can be seen in both his 'Chlorophylle' and 'Sibylline' series. The sharp humour and funny characters make his series some of the best in the genre. Originally, Raymond Macherot focused on a career in journalism and painting, but he soon started illustrating for financial reasons. His first drawings, which he made under the name Zara, appeared in the magazine Pan. Macherot's actual comics career started in 1953, when he joined the Tintin magazine and the art studios of Lombard publishers. There, he did several illustrations and short stories. He also wrote the first episode for 'Le Chevalier Blanc', a series drawn for several years by Fred and Liliane Funcken.

A year later, he created his first and best known animal series, 'Chlorophylle et Minimum'. Macherot drew the series until 1963, commenting on many social en political issues through the view of the rodents Chlorophylle and Minimum and their continuing problems with vicious gangs of rats and ferets. Many artists had their turn on the comic in the following years, such as Pierre Guilmard, Hubuc, Dupa and Walli. While doing 'Chlorophylle', Macherot produced one-shots like 'Père la Houle' and 'Klaxon'. He also created the famous series about the typical British detective 'Clifton' in 1960, of which he drew three episodes and which was illustrated afterwards by Jo-El Azara, Turk and Bédu.

Macherot left Tintin magazine in 1964, handing over his series to other artists. He then joined Spirou magazine, where he made his debut with the brilliant animal comic 'Chaminou et le Khrompire', about an aristocratic cat in the kingdom Zoolande. Unfortunately, the series lasted for only one episode (until 1989, when it was continued by Denis Bodart and Yann and later by Olivier Saive and Macherot himself). A year later, Macherot came up with the 'Sybilline et Taboum' series, in which he continued the 'Chlorophylle' theme. He drew this series until his retirement in the 1990s.

Sybilline's initial enemy, the stupid cat 'Pantouffle', briefly got a spin-off gag series in he 1960s, written by René Goscinny. In the 1970s, Macherot teamed up with writer Raoul Cauvin to begin the 'Mirliton' gag series in the 1970s. As a scenarist, Raymond Macherot cooperated with Yvan Delporte on the creation of 'Mulligan' (drawn by Berck) and 'Isabelle' (drawn by Will). In 2005, Macherot and artist André Taymans started working on new adventures of 'Sybilline', published by Éditions Flouzemaker. Raymond Macherot is one of the clasic artists of the franco-belgian school.