Les Psy
Bernard Dumont, better known by his pseudonym Bédu, is a comic artist who has worked for the magazines Tintin and Spirou since the 1970s. Born in Ciney in the province of Namur, he studied economical sciences at the Catholic University of Louvain. It was during his studies that he assumed his pen name Bédu, while making illustrations for a student's paper. Upon graduation in 1972, he turned to making comics - at first as an assistant to Berck on series like 'Mischa', 'Lowietje' and 'Sammy'.
Ali Beber
By 1975, he began his association with (initially the Belgian edition of) Tintin magazine, for which he created about a dozen short stories of the funny animal series 'Beany, le Raton-Laveur'. He was then teamed up with scriptwriter Christian Blareau, with whom he created the gag series 'Le P'tit Prof' (1978-1987) and the "Thousand and One Nights" adventure series 'Ali Béber' (1980-1982). On his own, Bédu created the children's series about the medieval troubadour 'Hugo' (1981-1990). In 1980 he was one of many Belgian comic artists to make a graphic contribution to the book 'Il était une fois... les Belges'/'Er waren eens Belgen' (1980), a collection of columns and one-page comics, published at the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Belgium. In 1987-1988 the publishing company Brain Factory International released a four-volume comic book series where Franco-Belgian comic authors visualized several songs by singer Jacques Brel in comic strip form. The second volume, 'Les Prénoms' (1987) featured a contribution by Bédu.
Le P'tit Prof (Proffie in Dutch, Kuifje, 1982)
Between 1983 and 1993, he additionally took over the artwork for the funny series about the British detectve 'Clifton' and revitalized this classic Macherot series, until 1989 in cooperation with Bob de Groot, then with his own scripts. When Tintin and its follow-up Hello Bédé folded, Bédu transferred to the Dupuis magazine Spirou. He teamed up with Raoul Cauvin to create 'Les Psy', a series of gags and short stories with a satirical view on psychiatry, that has ran in the magazine since 1992. The first book collection appeared in 1994.
Clifton