'French-Bill' (1955).
Maurice Toussaint was a French painter and artist, specializing in military subjects. During the 1950s and 1960s, he also worked for French digest-sized comic books, drawing pulpy adventure series like 'D'Artagnan' (1953-1956) and 'French-Bill' (1953-1955). He possibly also worked under the pen name Moreau de Tours, an artist also credited with similar comic stories.
Life
Augustin Gabriel Maurice Toussaint was born in 1882 in Fontenay-aux-Roses, a town in the Hauts-de-Seine region of France, southwest of Paris. His father was painter and engraver Henri Toussaint (1849-1911), who was known for his prints depicting the architecture of Paris and other French cities. His maternal grandfather was Parisian publisher and bookseller Amédée Bédelet. For most of his life, Maurice Toussaint lived in Paris. He died in the 2nd arrondissement of Lyon on 5 December 1974.
'The French Republican Guard on Horseback', military watercolor painting by Maurice Toussaint.
Illustrator
As a painter and illustrator, Maurice Toussaint was well-known for his mastery of military subjects, in particular uniforms. For publishers like Nathan and Les Éditions Militaires Illustrées, he illustrated numerous works about the French armies during the Old Regime, as well as the First and Second French Empire. In addition, he illustrated advertisements for the French railway network, and historical and detective novels, published in youth magazines like L'As (Société Parisienne d'Édition, 1937-1940) and Lisez-Moi Aventures (Éditions Tallandier, 1948-1952). During the same period, he illustrated the cover for the Emilio Salgari novel 'La Cité du Roi Lépreux' (Tallandier, 1952).
Petits formats
During the early 1950s, Toussaint ventured into the field of digest-sized comic books, generally referred to as "petits formats". For publisher Sagédition, he painted six covers for the Heroïc comic book series. Between 1953 and 1955, Toussaint drew covers and interior pages for the western comic book 'French-Bill', written by Albert Bonneau. Twenty-five issues were published by Louis Brunier. For Éditions SNPI, he drew over 500 pages of the swashbuckler adventures of 'D'Artagnan', published subsequently in the (bi-)monthly titles Le Journal D'Artagnan' (1953-1954, 8 issues), Zappy (1954-1955, 13 issues) and Teddy (1955-1956, 5 issues). For Arc-en-ciel, published by the Société Française de Production, he made the short-lived back-up feature about the medieval hero 'Didier le Preux' (1957-1958).
Cover art for D'Artagnan issues #5 and #8.
Moreau de Tours
It is possible that Maurice Toussaint also worked under the pen name Moreau de Tours. Comics by that otherwise obscure artist appeared in several "petits formats" during the 1950s and 1960s. Most of those comic books were released by the publishing imprints founded by Jean Chapelle, successively the Société Française de Presse Illustrée (SPFI) and the Société Française de Production (SFP).
Starting in 1956, and through the second half of the 1960s, short stories credited to Moreau de Tours appeared in titles like Bison Noir, Dennis, Ajax and M.15 Agent 333, including western features like 'Jack Flash' and 'Stillnes, le Cree'. His contributions to the humor title Hoppy were often comic adaptations of short stories and poems by French novelists like Prosper Mérimée, Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo or Gustave Flaubert. In Bimbo, Moreau de Tours drew adventures of the jungle hero 'Robin L'Intrepide' in Bimbo from scripts by Michel Bergerac. Originally, the feature was a reworked version of Paul Cuvelier's comic series 'Corentin', drawn by Jean Pape. Later, it became a stand-alone feature drawn by André Oulié, with fill-in episodes by Moreau de Tours. In 1964, Moreau de Tours also illustrated two episodes of the back-up feature 'Tim Boss' in the comic book Zorro Spécial.
Between 1963 and 1964, Moreau de Tours was the artist of the back-up feature 'La Patrouille Blanche' in the Lancelot comic book, published in the Mon Journal collection of publisher Aventures et Voyages. Written by Roger Lécureux, the series is set in the Canadian North, telling the adventures of the Canadian Mounted Police. The Moreau de Tours stories appeared in issues #21 through #31. Additional installments of 'La Patrouille Blanche' were drawn by Franco Caprioli, who remained the artist of the feature throughout the rest of the decade in Lancelot, Messire and En Garde. Between 1980 and 1985, the stories were reprinted in the Carabina Slim title.
La Patrouille Blanche - 'Le Cas de Dorothy Findbley' (Lancelot #25, November 1963), drawn by Moreau de Tours.