It is being reported that comic artist Gérald Forton has passed away.
Gérald Marcel Forton
April 10, 1931 – December 18 (16?), 2021
From the JN notice (via Google Translate):
Born in Brussels on April 10, 1931, Gérald Forton died Saturday 18 at the age of 90 in Apple Valley, California. He was one of the most versatile scriptwriters and comic book designers, being one of the last resisters of his generation.
In a long and diverse career, he made his debut in “Spirou” in 1952 and worked in titles such as “Risque-Tout” (1955), “Vaillant” (1959) and “Femmes d”Aujoud”hui” ( 1962, where he resumes the graphic adaptation of “Bob Morane”, possibly his most outstanding creation).
The Lambiek Comiclopedia entry on Gérald tells of his eventual emigration to the United States where he began as a comic book artist and then went on to animation storyboards.
Gérald Forton emigrated to the USA in the early 1980s. There, he worked for comic book companies like DC and First Comics on titles like ‘Jonah Hex’, ‘Arak, Son of Thunder’, ‘Jon Sable’ and ‘Nexus’ throughout the 1980s. He was also an inker for comic books published by Eclipse. For McNaught Syndicate, he penciled the newspaper strip based on the TV cartoon ‘He-Man and the Masters of the Universe’ from scripts by James Shull and later Chris Weber in 1986 and 1987 .In the States, Forton has been primarily working on storyboards for movies and TV commercials.
BD Zoom has a long and complete obituary/biography of Gerald (via Google Translate):
It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing of Gerald Forton on December 16, 2021 (in Apple Valley, California), at the age of 90. As Marc Impatient, responsible for the small Belgian structure Hibou, which was his last publisher, and with whom he worked for 20 years on more than 40 albums, points out, “always affable, humble, never lacking in courtesy… he’s a gentleman. who takes his bow! ” His very long career, with an enormous production, is difficult to enumerate in a few lines: this is however what we tried to do, in February 2010, with this “Heritage Corner” which was dedicated to him and which we are reviewing in One of the site to salute this important popular cartoonist…
Gérald drew the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe comic strip from 1986-1991
(1986-1987 in the U.S.).
© Mattel
edited Dec. 20 to add the BD Zoom biography link and date of death
Bonjour,
The main series drawn by Gérald FORTON was a western, “Teddy Ted”, from 1964 to 1975 on scenarios by Roger LECUREUX, in the weekly VAILLANT LE JOURNAL DE PIF which became PIF GADGET in 1969.
Teddy Ted was created in 1963 by Francisco Hidalgo and Jacques Kamb who only made 3 episodes. Forton drew some fifteen stories of 48 pages (and a few shorter ones for special issues) then, in the new formula of 1969, a hundred stories between 10 and 20 pages Teddy Ted had his own quarterly for 8 issues in 1973-74, then a bimonthly (6 issues in 1977). All with reprints. There were also a few albums.
To know more :
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Ted
http://teddyted.free.fr/teddy_ted_sommaire.htm
and, of course, n ° 86 of the fanzine HOP!