Georges Pichard

Georges Pichard (January 17, 1920 – June 7, 2003) was a French comics artist, known for numerous BD Franco-Belgian comics magazine covers, serial publications and albums, stereotypically featuring partially exposed voluptuous women.

Biography

A native of Paris, he was educated at the École des Arts Appliques, and after World War II worked as illustrator in advertising before publishing his first cartoon strip in La Semaine de Suzette in 1956, featuring a "girl next-door" character named Miss Mimi.

In the early 60s he met Jacques Lob, with whom he collaborated on the superhero parodies, Ténébrax and Submerman. Ténébrax was first published in the short-lived Franco-Belgian comics magazine Chouchou, and continued its serial run in Italian magazine Linus. In 1967, Submerman was serialised in Pilote magazine, but after a few years Pichard left the family friendly comics genre entirely.

Having collaborated with Danie Dubos on the more daring Lolly-strip which was serialised in Le Rire in 1966, Pichard and Lob began work within the erotic genre of comics as Blanche Épiphanie started serial publication in V Magazine in 1968. There was significant public reaction as this character acted outside the moral boundaries of the times, and at one point emulated Jane Fonda by going to Vietnam. This period saw Pichard develop his style of shaping his female heroines into tall, well-endowed women with excessive eyeliner make-up to create a gothic appearance.