Yves Rodier

Did You Know?

• Rodier's series Simon Nian uses the style of illustrator Maurice Tillieux.
• In his version of Tintin and Alph-Art, some panels were copied from Hergé's albums, especially from Coke en Stock.

Biography

Rodier initially pursued music or cinematography before returning to comics. He began by imitating Hergé, creating illegal Tintin pastiches that earned little money but introduced him to cartoonists like Bob de Moor, Jacques Martin, and Michel "Greg" Regnier. In 1995, he met Daniel and Richard Houde and started the series Pignouf et Hamlet in their magazine Pignouf, which lasted five issues.

Work

Rodier's passion for Hergé's Tintin led him to write his own Tintin stories as pastiches, which are illegal due to copyright held by the Hergé Foundation (Moulinsart). Some have been published and circulate online. He is one of the largest unofficial Tintin draughtsmen, alongside Harry Edwood. Rodier completed the unfinished Tintin and Alph-Art in black-and-white; it was published in Autumn 1986 and presented to Moulinsart, who refused his request to make it official.

In September 1991, he met Bob de Moor, and together they sought permission to redraw the book, but Moulinsart again refused. After De Moor's death in 1992, Rodier redrew parts to better match Hergé's style; the work was released only on CD-ROM. Hergé had once suggested a story set in an airport, but chose the art world for Tintin and Alph-Art. Rodier began A Day at the Airport, which was abandoned; its first page leaked online, involving General Alcazar being shot by Dr. Müller.

Rodier also created an extra page for Tintin in Tibet that Hergé had deleted, based on a 1957 contest scenario from Journal de Spirou. Twenty years later, Rodier used that scenario for another contest, converting it into a Tintin plot with six half-pages set before Tintin and the Soviets, explaining how Tintin becomes a reporter; he was disqualified for using existing characters. He drew a seven-page story called The Sorcerers Lake, about a monster in a lake, set before Tintin in Tibet, drawn from 1996 to 2003.

His version of Le Thermozéro is an inking from page 4 of Hergé's sketches, intended as a continuation of Tintin au Tibet.

Relationship with Bob de Moor

Rodier first met Bob de Moor at the Festival BD in Brossard, near Montréal, in September 1991, after prior correspondence about Rodier's version of Alph-Art. De Moor called Alph-Art "utopian" and was enthusiastic about Rodier's drawings. Their relationship remained good until De Moor's death in August 1992.