Fred et Alfred #1 - 'Le Singe'.
François Dimberton is a French comic book author, who began his career drawing retro-styled comics in the tradition of Tillieux, but eventually became a prolific scriptwriter of mainly biographical comics. He was born in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges and made his debut in 1975 at the S.P.E. (Société Parisienne d'Édition). A year later, he joined Pif Gadget magazine, where he illustrated stories with the title character 'Pif le Chien' scripted by Michel Motti or François Corteggiani. From 1980, he was present in Tintin with such series as 'Caline et Gribouillis' and 'Harry Plaxon'. At the same time, he started working for Spirou magazine, where he launched 'Jean Darc' (written by Stephen Desberg) and 'Celsius'. In 1982, he came up with new adventures of Maurice Tillieux' classic character 'Félix' in Le Journal Illustré and Félix Magazine. He also illustrated twelve pantomime comic strips that came with Malabar chewing gum in that year.
'Pif le Chien' (Pif Gadget #445, 1977).
Dimberton was present in several other magazines with series like 'Albert' in Amis-Coop, 'Hercule' in Gomme and 'Les Aventures de Fred et Alfred' in Mikado. He was also present at the publishing house Glénat with 'Alex Contre Le Hibou' (1985), another comic heavilly influenced by detective grandmaster Maurice Tillieux. In 1987, he created 'Skippy' in Pif Gadget. He wrote and drew the humorous children's comic 'La Princesse et le Bouffon' for Hugo & Cie in 2008.
'Jean Darc' (Spirou, 1983).
Dimberton has been writing more realistic comics for other artists since the late 1980s. His early collaborations were 'Margot l'Enfant Bleue' with Son (1989-1990) and 'Mémoires d'un Aventurier' with Dominique Hé (1989-1991). At Éditions Bamboo, he has made 'Le Dessinateur' with co-writer Erroc and artist Jean Trolley (2008-2010) and 'Taxi Molloy' for Alexis Chabert (2009).
'David'.
Dimberton is especially known for writing biographical comics. These include comics about French comedian Coluche with Rémi Torregrossa (Jungle!, 2014), singer Johnny Hallyday with Bauer (Jungle!, 2014), actor Louis de Funès with Alexis Chabert (Delcourt, 2014), singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg with Alexis Chabert (2015) and the painter David with his own art (Glénat, 2015). Since the late 1990s, he also writes an occasional story with Disney characters for Le Journal de Mickey. In addition, Dimberton has done illustrations for Playboy, as well as background art for Canal + and Antenne 2.
Seron also contributed to 'Les Enquêtes de Leurs Amis' (Soleil, 1989), a collective tribute album to Maurice Tillieux' hero detective 'Gil Jourdan'.
Artwork by François Dimberton.