“few people were keen on the news at the time, Cabu, Jacques Faizant, Hara-Kiri were coming”, DuBouillon remembers

For several decades, DuBouillon has been the official cartoonist for the Lyon daily “Le Progrès”. The newspaper reserves a column for him in the Sunday edition, where he summarizes the news of the week in his own way. The designer retired in December. A look back at a career rich in encounters and pencil strokes.

“I wanted to express my way of thinking, drawing suited me very well.” Alain Bouillon, alias DuBouillon, is a designer et Lyon cartoonist. For 50 years, he has been sketching political life and current events.

“I was in Lyon. At the beginning, I sent my drawings by mail to newspapers and editorial offices. It took time,” he explains. “I left Lyon at the age of 23, for Paris. I stayed there for 10 years. I knew a lot of designers. A guy I liked and who also followed me was Cabu. A great relationship of friendship”, says DuBouillon. Apart from their work in the press, the two designers also worked for Dargaud, one for Pilot and the other for Tintin. It was in Paris that the Lyonnais forged links in the 1960s with a generation of designers “swollen”.

“There were few cartoonists who made the news at the time, apart from Jacques Faizant for Le Figaro. Hara-Kiri was beginning to appear. He produced extraordinary designers. They were pretty pumped up, I followed them and participated a little at first. It’s a generation that I really liked.”

The press cartoonist is between the artist and the journalist, it’s complicated (…) I was looking to make funny drawings. The goal is to make others laugh.

If the Lyon designer remains discreet about his career, he mainly talks about his most memorable encounters. “At Hara-Kiri, they were irreverent towards institutions. They were capable of making drawings against morality. They were courageous.” From the satirical newspaper with a cynical tone, the designer knew François Cavanna. DuBouillon also collaborated with Reiser for two years in comics. An unusual collaboration for the young man from a background “relatively conservative”. “I did the drawings and he did the scenarios. I drew what he wrote. He had incredible writing speed. That’s why I got on well with him: he taught me a lot of things, I was a little shy at the time. He brought me out of my reservations. explains the Lyonnais.

DuBouillon’s style is characterized by drawing characters with well-recognizable rounded features: a large nose, a large mouth, a puff on the top of the head for the gentlemen, well-placed curves and bow ties on the women’s hair.

“The character is a puppet, he is a puppet that we make speak, according to what he has to say”, summarizes DuBouillon. “We look at what is happening in the society in which we live. We need experience, a certain experience. Often the news helps us, politicians, social events, humanist movements, political problems, dictatorships … “.

“The talent for finding the funny little bit of information in news that isn’t funny is what has made it successful with us.” Frédéric Blanc, deputy editor-in-chief at Le Progrès. The designer collaborated for more than four decades with the regional daily. His drawings dealt with national and even international news. “I would not have liked to do drawing simply for Lyon, to have to do with Lyon institutions and Lyon notables.”, he confides. Fear of self-censorship.

It’s difficult for Frédéric Blanc to summarize these rich decades of collaboration with the designer: “Alain DuBouillon is a bit like the memory of the editorial team, forty years of collaboration. It is rather he who is in a position to propose and us to choose, rather than commissioning drawings from him. During all these years, he had the habit of offering us a series of drawings on which we relied to illustrate a week’s news.

DuBouillon is Progress. Progress is DuBouillon. There is a real common history. It was a bit of a heartbreak to end this collaboration. DuBouillon is not replaced, DuBouillon is not replaceable.

Frederic Blanc

Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Le Progrès

Since 1994, the daily newspaper has published an album of its best Sunday drawings every year. Fall of the Berlin Wall, September 11, Charlie Hebdo, Paris Olympic Games… A special issue was published in December around 40 current events which span the cartoonist’s 40-year career. In March, an exhibition is planned at the Lyon Archives next March.

The reputation of the designer extended far beyond the borders of the capital of Gaul. Since December 2023, the media library Nantua now bears the name of « DuBouillon media library ».