Edgar P. Jacobs

Edgard Félix Pierre Jacobs (30 March 1904 – 20 February 1987), better known under his pen name Edgar P. Jacobs, was a Belgian comic book writer and artist.  Jacobs was one of the founding fathers of the European comics movement.  He worked with Hergé on the graphic novel series that made him famous, Blake and Mortimer.

Biography
Edgar Pierre Jacobs was born in Brussels in 1904. In 1919 he graduated from school. He took on odd jobs at the opera, including decoration, scenography, and painting. Sometimes he worked as an extra. In 1929 he received the annual Belgian government medal for excellence in classical singing.

In 1940 Jacobs turned permanently to illustration.  He drew commercial illustrations and collaborated in the Bravo review until 1946.

The American comic strip Flash Gordon was not allowed in Belgium by the German forces during World War II.  He was asked to write an end to the comic.  But German censorship stopped this after only a couple of weeks. Jacobs then published in Bravo his first comic strip, Le Rayon U (The U Ray).  This was in the same Flash Gordon style.

Around this time, he became a stage painter for a theatre adaptation for Hergé's Cigars of the Pharaoh. This led to friendship with Hergé. As a direct result, he helped Hergé in colorizing the black and white strips of The Shooting Star to be ready for book publication in 1942. From 1944 on he helped in the recasting of his earlier albums Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, King Ottokar's Sceptre and  The Blue Lotus for color book publication. After the project, he continued to contribute directly in the drawing as well as the storyline for the new Tintin double-albums The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun.

Jacobs, as a fan of opera, decided to take Hergé with him to a concert. Hergé did not like opera, however, and for decades he would gently joke with his friend Jacobs through opera singer Bianca Castafiore, a supporting character in The Adventures of Tintin. Hergé also gave him tiny cameo roles in Tintin adventures, sometimes under the name Jacobini.

In 1946, he was part of the team gathered by Raymond Leblanc around the new comics magazine Le Journal de Tintin. His story Le secret de l’Espadon (The Secret of the Swordfish) was published on September 26.  This was the first of the Blake and Mortimer series.

Bibliography
 Le Rayon U (The U Ray), in 1943
 Le Secret de l'Espadon (The Secret of the Swordfish), in 1947 (3 volumes)
 Le Mystère de la Grande Pyramide, (The Mystery of the Great Pyramid), in 1950 (2 volumes)
 La Marque Jaune (The Yellow "M"), in 1953
 L'Énigme de l'Atlantide  (Atlantis Mystery), in 1955
 S.O.S. Météores: Mortimer à Paris (S.O.S. Meteors), in 1958
 Le Piège diabolique (The Time Trap) in 1960
 L'Affaire du Collier (The Necklace Affair) in 1965
 Les trois Formules du Professeur Sato: Mortimer à Tokyo (Mortimer in Tokyo) in 1970 (vol. 1). Vol. 2 Mortimer contre Mortimer (Mortimer versus Mortimer) completed by Bob De Moor, 1990

Awards
 1971: Grand Prix Saint-Michel, Belgium

References

Guyard, Jean-Marc. Le Baryton du neuvième art. Bruxelles: Éditions Blake et Mortimer, 1996. 
Jacobs, Edgar P. Un opéra de papier:  Les mémoires de Blake et Mortimer. Paris: Gallimard, 1981. 
Lenne, Gérard. L'Affaire Jacobs. Paris:  Megawave, 1990. 
Mouchart, Benoit.  A l'ombre de la ligne claire: Jacques Van Melkebeke, le clandestin de la B.D. Paris:  Vertige Graphic, 2002. 
Mouchart, Benoît and Rivière, François La Damnation d'Edgar P. Jacobs, Seuil-Archimbaud, 2003. 
 Edgar P.  Jacobs publications in Belgian ''Tintin and French Tintin BDoubliées 

1904 births
1987 deaths
Artists from Brussels
Belgian comics artists
Writers from Brussels