Philippe Vuillemin

Philippe Vuillemin (born 1958 in Marseilles, France) is a French cartoonist. His father was inspector for music royalties organization Sacem who along with his son travelled around the country to collect fees. Vuillemin, between 11 and 15 years old, spent time away from his Marseilles birthplace in Corsica and Orléans. He subsequently recalled he "got horny for the first time at 13 years old over a story by Crumb.” At 18 he went to Paris, where he shaved his head and joined a punk rock band, while unloading trucks six hours a day. Around 1977, Vuillemin began his work in the field of comics with short stories published in L'Écho des savanes, Hara-Kiri, and Charlie Mensuel. From his start, he was drawing in "bold and rough lines", similar to the style of Jean-Marc Reiser or even Jack Davis. This being the opposite of the ligne claire ("clear line") of cartoonists such as Hergé, critics called it ligne crade ("filthy line"), a term Vuillemin characterized as bêta ("stupido"). In the 1...