André Jobin also created the Pythagoras hibour. He had lived in Nîmes since 1999.
Esby
André Jobin, better known under the pseudonym Job, co-creator of Yakari with Derib, died on October 8, 2024 at the age of 96, announced the Lombard editions. Born on October 25, 1927 in Delémont, he was not really predestined for a career in comics. A graduate of the Higher School of Journalism and the Institute of Social and Political Sciences of Lille, he is a journalist in various Swiss media, notably “Le Pays”, for which he covered the political and cultural fields for several years.
The creator of “Toad with Glasses”
In 1953, he married Monique Enderlin, with whom he had four children. He also got involved in politics, becoming a member of the steering committee of the Jura Rally. In 1959, André Jobin founded the magazine “Samedi-Jura”, which ended prematurely, which pushed him to work for “Le Journal de Montreux”, before radically changing its audience. In 1964, he created the “Crapaud à spectacles”, a weekly aimed at schoolchildren in French-speaking Switzerland, which followed the monthly “L’Écolier romand”.
He never left this demanding public until his well-deserved retirement, almost 50 years later. In his magazine, André Jobin seeks to educate his readers while entertaining them, like his colleagues from the newspaper “Tintin”. He also wants to offer new content, which pushes him to compose a first sketch of a comic book scenario.
In 1967, he met the designer Derib, who had recently returned from Belgium where he worked for three years at Studio Peyo. Together, they launched “The Adventures of Pythagoras and Co”, whose main character is a learned, talkative, and prankster eagle owl. This first story is then presented in black and white. This is how the great story between André Jobin alias Job and the 9th art begins. While “The Adventures of Pythagoras and Co” appeared in the form of episodes in the press, requests poured in for these to also be collected into an album and colored.
After a few unsuccessful attempts, André Jobin decided to try the adventure of self-publishing. The first volume, with a hardcover, came out exactly on October 25, 1969, the day of his 42nd birthday. The second album was published the following year, before the third and last was finally published in 1974 jointly by 24 Heures (for Switzerland), Rossel (in Belgium), and Fleurus (in France).
The 2nd volume of the adventures of Pythagoras.
Rossel
The end of Pythagoras’ adventures actually constitutes the beginning of a new editorial odyssey for Job. In 1969, Derib took a character out of his boxes, a certain Yakari. He suggests to his screenwriter to draw stories from it. The latter happily accepts, on the condition that the young hero always remains a child of the wild, and that the plots never fall into Western clichés. Each episode must also introduce a new animal.
Birth of Yakari in 1969
Yakari took his first steps in black and white on December 12, 1969. The two authors could not imagine the immense success to come. Launched in “The Toad with Glasses”, in which he appeared for several years (with Dominique, Derib’s wife, in color), Yakari quickly became the favorite hero of the magazine’s young readers. So much so that five years later, in 1974, Job launched a new youth newspaper, which quite naturally took the name of his favorite character.
No less than 256 issues of the magazine “Yakari” appeared until 1996. Until “The Fury of Heaven”, the 22nd title in the series, all the episodes of Yakari’s adventures were pre-published exclusively in the pages of this magazine. But the extraordinary saga of the young Sioux from the Lakota tribe does not end there. Between 1973 and 2014, 38 volumes of the adventures of the animal whisperer were written by Job, before he, aged 87, gave way to Joris Chamblain, then Xavier Giacometti.
Until “The Fury of Heaven”, the 22nd title in the series, all the episodes of Yakari’s adventures are pre-published exclusively in the pages of the magazine in his name.
The Lombard
The series now includes 42 volumes. It has been translated into around twenty languages, including German, Portuguese, Mandarin, Arabic, and Inuktitut. Not to mention the numerous adaptations of Yakari by other media, whether as an animated series, an animated feature film, a novel, a musical, or even a video game. With Derib, his lifelong accomplice, Job has achieved what many comic book authors dream of: creating a universe in which he can make his emblematic character evolve as he sees fit. A hero who has rocked and continues to inspire generations of children.
Honorary Master of the Sierre Festival in 1991
Throughout his career, André Jobin has received numerous awards, including two Youth Prizes from the Angoulême International Comics Festival for “Yakari and the Secret of Petit Tonnerre”, then “Yakari and the appaloosas”, in 1982 and 2006 respectively. He was also consecrated in 1991 by the Sierre festival, which awarded him the Master of Honor for all of his work. In 2017, the Delémont’BD festival and the town of Delémont also paid tribute to André Jobin, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
Throughout his career as a comic book writer, his stories have reflected his good humor and a visionary spirit, particularly in the areas of living together, ecology, respectful relationship with nature, and animal protection. Since 1999, he resided with his wife in Nîmes, in the south of France. He is a great gentleman, elegant and cultured, who is leaving us.
