Jean-Claude Claeys

Author and French illustrator born the October 16th 1951 with Paris.

Style and technique

Violence, torrid erotism and black atmosphere characterize the work of Jean-Claude Claeys. Reproducing with the Indian ink the photographs which it carries out before execution, it signs of the images hyperrealists in black and white which agree perfectly with the black cinema of the post-war period. Smoothness of the drawing, direction of the setting in scene… Claeys is expressed truly through an esthetics of the photographic restitution. At his place, the beauty has dependant part with death. The women are always beautiful, whether they are assassinated or that they kill. For Jean-Pierre Tamine: “the bands and the illustrations of Jean-Claude Claeys are before very carrying fascinations which haunt the author himself. The proliferous interior world and the account are only one pretext. ”

Course and aspects of the work of the author

The author of cartoons

After some advertizing work, it makes appear in 1975 Whiskey's dreams in the magazine Mormoil . This first cartoon constitutes the birth certificate of the private detective Jonathan Foolishbury, a character whom it takes again a few years later in Magnum Song , prépublié in the review to follow . In the context of America of prohibition, corruption and organized crime, Jonathan Foolishbury must face véreux police officers, corrupted senators, femmes fatale and methodical henchmen. Vibrating homage to the black novel and the American cinema, this album plays with the references, the protagonists appearing under the features of stars Hollywood.

In the Exterminator (short account published in To follow and taken again under the title a dirty medium! in the album the Best way of killing its next ), a novelist eliminates those which it holds for person in charge of its own forfeiture: a literary editor, bookseller, plagiarist, two critics and a press attaché (who take the features of famous authors of detective novels, such as Jean Vautrin, Frederic H. Fajardie, Prudon or ADG).

Claeys publishes then Paris-Rascal (ED. cheese, 1981), history of a maniac who exterminates the strippers of a cabaret. With the black Summer (Albin Michel, 1984), it takes again its character of novelist assassin, in a setting in abyss: pushed to end, a draftsman of cartoons plunges in the fatal madness of his character.

Its meeting in 1986 with Richard D. Nolane leads to Lüger & Paix (1987) which tells the destiny of the holders of a cursed weapon, Lüger forged in a supernatural metal. This album and the second shutter of this history, damnée Blade (1989), will be republished in a volume, with a new outcome, under the title fatal Lame (1995).

The illustrator of covers

In parallel, Claeys designs many covers for various editors. At Néo, it draws the whole of the covers of the works of the police collection " The Mirror obscur" (154 titles of 1979 to 1989), conferring a very strong visual identity to him. A selection of these drawings is included in two works: the Best way of killing its next (1982) and the One in the gutter (1982), captioned by Richard D. Nolane.

With the covers of the Hitchkcock Magazine , then especially with those which orders to him the collection “the Book of Pocket”, Jean-Claude Claeys diversifies towards the color. He holds it for the decorations, accessories, clothing, it does not reach the bodies, and leaves faces and flesh in the gray contrast of this Indian ink which models the beings in the black clay.

Curiosities: it carried out a film drawn the Places of the Mystery (2003) and incarnated a killer psychopathe in a film of series Z of Richard J. Thomson, Time Demon II .

Work

Albums and cartoons

Albums

1977: Whiskey's dreams (ED. swan)
1981: Magnum song (Casterman/prépubl. in To follow , n° 16-19/20-31, 1979-1980)
1982: the Best way of killing its next (Albin Michel)
1984: the black Summer (Albin Michel)
1984: Paris-Rascal (Albin Michel)
1988: the One in the gutter (Humanoides Associated, texts of R.D. Nolane on an idea of J. - C. Claeys)

Lüger Series & Peace (texts of Richard D. Nolane and J. - C. Claeys)

1 - Lüger & Peace (Humanoïdes Associated, 1987/pépubl. in Metal Howling , n° 127-132, 1987)
2 - damnée Blade (Humanoïdes Associated, 1989)
1+2- fatal Blade (Sun Productions, 1995)

Collective

1981: Paris will be always Paris (?) (Dargaud/prépubl. in Pilot n° 78,1980)

Cartoons published in the press

Sweet rococo ( Emmanuelle n° 5,1975)
East side story ( to follow n° 6/7-8, 1978)
Blue champagne ( Virus , n° 1-5, 1980-1981)
the Exterminator (in data base Whodunnit, weddings of blood , To follow HS, 1981)
data base of summer n° 15 ( Release n° 71,1981).

Illustrations

Portfolios

1982: Paris-Rascal (ED. Jacky Goupil)
1988: Paris-Rascal (Modern art)

illustrated Editions

the Diary of the whodunnit 1998 (Stylus, 1997)
Shangaï Express train n° 2 (2006)

Covers

Collections

“the Obscure Mirror” (NéO: 154 couv. from 1979 to 1989)
ED. Sinfonia (6 titles of 1986 to 1987)
“Special Police force” (Albin Michel: 3 titles)
“Alfred Hitchcock uncovers” (Club of the masks: 22 titles, of 1992 to 1995
the Book of Pocket Thriller (35 titles of 1994 to 1998)
“James Hadley Chase” (Gallimard: 51 titles of 1995 to 1998)
“Best-sellers” (R. Laffont: 3 titles)
“Hitchcock presents” (Bus: 4 titles)
Pocket (16 novels of Known Grafton and Christopher Casing)
Pocket youth (5 titles)
“Small Vermilion” (the Roundtable: 11 titles of Frederic H. Fajardie, since 1993)
“NéO” (Cherche Midi: 5 titles, since 2004)

Re-examined

Hitchcock Magazine (36 jackets of 1988 to 1992)
the review 813 (3 jackets, since 2002)

Catalog

Claeys (Media library the Durance of Cavaillon, 1998)

See too

Critical bibliography

Thriller n° 6 (1982)
Thriller n° 8 (1983)
813 n° 96 (2005)
Black Mamba n° 5 (2007)

External bonds

Official site
Article on Jean-Claude Claeys
the police cartoon

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