Signé Furax
Henry Blanc was a comic artist and illustrator for the French press. Born in Clermont-Ferrand, he saw his first paintings exhibited when he was 15 years old. That same year, he published his first work in Le Petit Dauphinois. After World War II, he drew for the Concorde magazine from Lyon, after which he settled in Paris. After some publications in Carrefour, Samedi-Soir and Radio-Magazine, he went to work as a cartoon animator with the studios of Paul Grimault, where he participated in the creation of 'La Bergère et le Ramoneur'. He subsequently worked at the Walt Disney press agency in Paris between 1952 and 1957.
San Antonio
In 1957, Henry Blanc became one of the main providers of daily comic strips for newspaper France-Soir. His daily feature 'Le Jeu des 7 Erreurs' started in 1959 and ran for more than 30 years. Between 1957 and 1960, he produced a comic strip adaptation of 'Signé Furax' with writer Robert Mallat. Furax was a famous French radioplay by Pierre Dac and Francis Blanche at the time. Blanc drew 1174 strips of the comic. Later on, he also made comic adaptations of 'Le Jugement Dernier', 'Les Mystères de Paris 1962' and 'Les Enquêtes du Commissaire San-Antonio' for the paper.
Blanc's version 'San-Antonio' ran for twelve years between 1963 and 1975 and was based on the best-selling humorous detective novels of Frédéric Dard. Henry Blanc has also worked for Jour de France ('Ferdinand et Véronique' from 1963 to 1968), Le Journal du Dimanche ('Les Bons Dimanches de Monsieur Blanc', 1961-62), Ici Paris (humorous drawings between 1963 and 1980) and Amis-Coop ('La Famille Campanule', 1983-1987).
Only few of his many comic strips and cartoons have been collected in book format. Henry Blanc passed away in March 2013 at the age of 91.
Signé Furax