Tom-Tom and Nana are in mourning. The two young heroes of the comic strip which, for forty years, brought joy to the readers of the magazine J'aime Lire, have lost their tender and mischievous illustrator. Bernadette Després died on November 19, at the age of 83.
Born in 1941 in Paris, into a family of eight children, she studied drawing at the School and Art Workshop for Young Girls on Rue Beethoven in Paris. She published her first children's albums inspired by daily life, at La Farandole, a communist publishing house.
In 1966, she joined Bayard Presse and collaborated with Pomme d'Api. The Words of Zaza, written by Jacqueline Cohen, is the duo's first bestseller. Soon, he was invited to create a monthly comic strip for the launch of the new magazine J'aime Lire. It was A la Bonne Fourchette in 1977, which officially became Tom-Tom et Nana in 1990, with the help of Evelyne Reberg as co-writer and Catherine Viansson-Ponté as color.
Merry mischief makers
Very quickly, the adventures of this big brother and his little sister, overflowing with energy and multiplying stupidities, often in elastic postures, were a great success with readers who identified with them. “ Children run and play: we must show the rough and tumble side of childhood! With Tom-Tom and Nana, I drew my dream childhood », Confided Bernadette Després.
Published in albums from 1985, these comics sold more than 17 million copies. They will even be adapted for television in 1988 and broadcast on France Télévisions, Canal J, Tiji then, in a new adaptation on Teletoon since 2019. They now even have an escape game room in their name in Paris and soon a second in Bordeaux.
The last original adventure of Tom-Tom and Nana appeared in J'aime Lire in 2009. Mischievous and spontaneous, Bernadette Després, based in Givraines in Loiret where she raised her four children, will have published around thirty other albums, some of which are musical with CD. In 2019, she will be honored at the Angoulême International Comics Festival which will dedicate a major exhibition to her and award her an honorary Fauve. His latest work The poemswas published by Bayard last year: a collection of poems born from the meeting with a famous children's writer, lover of poetry, Bernard Friot.
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