Didier Conrad

Didier Conrad
Didier Conrad at Lucca Comics & Games 2015
Born	6 May 1959 Marseille, France
Nationality	French

Didier Conrad (born 6 May 1959), is a French cartoonist and comics writer. He is the illustrator and cartoonist of Asterix and the Missing Scroll and Asterix and the Picts.

Didier Conrad was born in Marseille of parents originally from Switzerland. He developed a passion for comics and, at age 14, he sent a page to Journal de Spirou that was published in a page reserved for new talents. Five years later, in 1978, Conrad published his first comics series in the newspaper: "Jason", written by Mythic. Spirou editor Thierry Martens put him in touch with another aspiring comics author also from Marseille: Yann LePennetier. The pair hit it off despite having quite different personalities and decided to work together.

After publishing a few short comics in Spirou together in which they collaborated on both the writing and art, Yann & Conrad were tasked by the new editor Alain de Kuyssche with adding doodles and jokes in the top margin of the magazine's pages. This was generally considered a chore by the magazine's contributors, but Yann & Conrad shook things up by spoofing and sometimes outright insulting the series straight below their work. This caused a controversy at the magazine, during which they were defended by the magazine's veteran artist André Franquin, who felt they were regenerating a now stale publication. The pair was next asked to devise an action series in the style of another Spirou star character, Buck Danny, then on a hiatus. They appeared to comply, teasing a new series to be called "Chuck Willis", apparently starring a square-jawed all-American war hero. This character however was run over by a Jeep in the second panel, never to be seen again, and the series retitled Les Innommables (the Unnamables). Les Innommables was originally written by Conrad, who was busy drawing Jason, and drawn by Yann, but recognising their respective strengths, they eventually switched tasks. The series broke every possible taboo in a comics magazine aimed at children, featuring violence, sex and cruelty, and the pair were eventually sacked in 1982. During their period at Spirou, Conrad and Yann both still lived in Marseille and would spend the odd week in Brussels, staying in a guest room in the magazine's building. They later boasted that they would frequently break into the offices at night and read all the internal correspondence about themselves.