1981, A year to mark a white stone in the career of ANDREAS. In effect, a German living in Paris and drawing for belgian magazines, ANDREAS publishes - at a french publisher! - in the beginning of the year, his first album "Revelations Posthumous" on scenario of François RIVIERE. Like many other draftsmen of its generation, it is the mythical "How to become draftsman of STRIP CARTOONS" (with
Franquin and JIJE! Miam! Miam!) that will cause the young ANDREAS to be diverted right way to slip along the slope of the vice and the cartoon... At the end of the book, an address: that of a school - in Belgium - which gives courses of STRIP CARTOONS. Once read, he left at once, and we find him on the benches of the workshop STRIP CARTOONS of Saint-Luc Institute in Brussels. It is at the end of the second year that he decides to follow in parallel the courses of PAAPE, the famous creator of "Marc Davier" and of "Luc Orient". After some time, he takes ANDREAS for an assistant. They undertake then "Udolfo", a realistic series - on scenario of DUCHATEAU - which will appear first of all in TINTIN before being published in limited edition at a small editor. ANDREAS performs the pencil sketches and PAAPE the inking. Then he decides to fly on his own wings and creates, always for TINTIN, a series in which he assumes all alone the full realization: "Rork". We find there a fantastic atmosphere that is reminiscent of LOVECRAFT - that ANDREAS read a lot. It is precisely LOVECRAFT - the great fantastic american writer - which is the main character of the first "Révélation Posthume" that he carries out with RIVIERE for the magazine (A SUIVRE). Started more than two years earlier, this series is not only remarkable for its scenario, but also by the technology rediscovered by ANDREAS to accomplish its boards: that of the card to be scratched ("carte à gratter")! "I take my drawing which I reproduce with the back of a yellow sheet of copy. I then transfer it on the chart which I scrape while following the dotted line and while working my grayed"
Tools? "a pin inserted in a wood stem makes an excellent point; or, for the thicker features, a vaccine point..." The result is superb, stunning but... "It takes very long, It takes much more time to make a board in chart to be scratched that with Indian ink. And then, it is necessary to avoid being mistaken... if not, it is necessary to start again!"
To note in your notebooks: you will soon be able to see in Brussels, Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Toulouse, Aix-en-Province an exhibition of the originals of ANDREAS. Opens the eye!
