She has enchanted generations of children with her drawings, Bernadette Afterwardsdesigner of the famous comic strip “Tom-Tom and Nana”, died this Wednesday, November 20 at the age of 83. Bernadette Després knew the Loiret well since she had lived there for 50 years.
Bernadette Després started as an illustrator for the Bayard Presse group notably by creating game books. The turning point was his meeting with Jacqueline Cohen, who wrote the scripts for “Tom-Tom and Nana”, for the launch of the magazine I like to read in 1977.
She lived in the village of Givraines, north of Loiret, since 1974.
It is in the village of Givrainesnear Pithiviers, north of the Loiret, that Bernadette Després moved in with her husband in 1974. Originally from Paris, she was 33 years old and had a solid drawing background behind her. The decor of the restaurant “A la bonne forque”, a flagship place for comic strips, will be refined over the course of the first adventures and the preparatory sketches that Bernadette Després makes in Pithiviers.
Bernadette Després was a well-known figure in the Loirétains. Every year, she organized several visits to her house in Givraines, so that fans can immerse themselves in the designer's drawings. “He was always a smiling person.” indicates Patrick Guérinet, mayor of Givraines, a town with 450 inhabitants, “She was always there when she was asked, particularly in schools, in Givraines or elsewhere, regularly the children went to Tom-Tom and Nana’s house, there is the memory of two generations of children who are leaving today. We will have to pay tribute to him in one way or another.” In 2019, France Bleu Orléans revealed to you, thanks to Bernadette Després, the secrets of a work “Made in Loiret”:
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A regular at the Bulles en Val festival
In 2019, Bernadette Després was honored with a Fauve d'or at the Angoulême festival for all of her work. She regularly met Tom-Tom and Nana fans in comic book fairsnotably in the Loiret where she came “about every two to three years” at the Bulles en Val show which has been held every year in Saint-Denis-en-Val since 2001. Its founder and former president, Jean-Pierre Meunier is very moved. “She took great pleasure in being surrounded by children who questioned her about her drawing, she was great with children. Every generation for 50 years has been talking about Tom-Tom and Nana. At the shows, there were just as many children who came with an album and parents or grandparents who also came to have a signing, it was fantastic” remembers Jean-Pierre Meunier, “She always wanted to do the right thing, she asked me if she was doing things right, but it was magical every time! It was Bernadette, I’m really sad.”
