Paul d'Espagnat

Paul d'Espagnat is one of the French comics artists from the early 20th century. His first work appeared in L'Imagier from 1894, and soon his drawings were featured in Frou-Frou, Le Pêle-Mêle and Bon Vivant. Using several pseudonyms, such as S-Pania, I-Béric and Béric, to sign his work, d'Espagnat drew for numerous publications of the publishing house Arthème Fayard, such as La Jeunesse Illustrée (1903-35) and Les Belles Images (1904-36).

For La Jeunesse Illustrée, he created among others 'Boxe et Hymen' in 1908. He was art director of Les Belles Images for a while, and he drew 'Le Secret de la Maison Jaune' in L'As in 1937. He created several comical strips in Fillette, such as 'Les Galéjades d'Olivette de Marseille' (1939-40) and 'Mademoiselle Risquetout' (1940-41).

D'Espagnat was one of the first comic artists that experimented with the use of text balloons. Some of his works featured characters with disproportional heads, a heritage of French caricaturists from the turn of the Century, like Caran d'Ache, Tybalt and Raymond Tournon. Other works had a more Art Deco style, with silhouette characters, like in 'Pages de Gloire Française et d'Humour', based on the memoires of General Marbot and published in France-Soir Jeudi.

D'Espagnat was also a big animated film fan, which resulted in his Disney-like section Page des Juniors in Belles Images in 1934-35. His final known work was 'Le Paladin des Paladins', which also appeared in France-Soir Jeudi. With his clearness of style, and recognizable characters, Paul d'Espagnat can be considered the French equivalent of George McManus.