'Marée Basse' (Spirou #2313, 12 August 1982).
Benoît Jaminon was a Belgian painter and comic artist from the Liège region. During his short life, he drew only a handful of comics, one appearing as a mini-booklet in Spirou issue #2313 of 1982.
Early life
Benoît Jaminon was born in 1959 in Léopoldville in Belgian Congo, present-day Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. His father was the painter Albert Jaminon (1925-2006), who spent most of the 1950s as an art teacher in the Belgian colony. By the time the country gained its independence in 1960, the family returned to their Belgian hometown of Liège, where Benoît's younger brother was born, the future illustrator Olivier Jaminon (b. 1962).
Education
In Liège, Benoît Jaminon went to primary and secondary school, and then enrolled at the École Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc, where he was a student of Jean-Yves Stanicel. In addition, he took courses in comic art and screen printing at Liège's Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where among his teachers were Nic Broca and Fernand Flaush. A couple of years later, Benoît Jaminon was selected by Éditions Dupuis to draw 'Les Snorky' ('The Snorks'), the underwater creatures created by his former teacher Broca for the publisher's audiovisual department. It is however unknown if and what he eventually contributed to the franchise.
Artistic career
The comic career of Benoît Jaminon is limited to two known publications. In 1981, Jaminon and writer Caporal created the 12-page comic booklet 'Balade à Liège' ("A Walk Through Liège) for the Liège Tourist Office. In the following year, he worked with scriptwriter H. Lauzet on a centrefold mini-booklet for Spirou magazine. Published in issue #2313 of 1982, the story 'Marée Basse' ("Low Tide") dealt with an alien invasion of flying vacuum cleaners sucking up all the earth's water. As a decorative painter, Benoît Jaminon is credited with the fresco in the Le Pot Au Lait bar in Liège and Christmas window displays during the holiday season.
Death
On 9 April 1988, Benoît Jaminon was tragically killed in a house fire. He was 29 years old.
Benoît Jaminon.