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Derib in his bubble

His characters have accompanied generations of children and comic strip fans. Yakari, Petit Tonnerre et Grand Aigle, Pythagore, Buddy Longway or Jo… Derib, alias Claude de Ribaupierre, has poured his heart and talent into each of his “imaginary children”, some of whom have become legendary comic strip figures.

Derib was only 20 when he gave birth to Yakari. He had already developed a real passion for the American Indians. But above all, he had already been practicing his drawing skills for many years. My father was a renowned painter, so I was born into an environment where pencils and brushes were part of everyday life,” says Derib. I started drawing at the age of five, and by ten I had subscribed to the magazines Tintin and Spirou. When I was 13, I created my first comic strips, but not without first drawing the anatomy of the human body in minute detail, at my father’s request. In this climate of creativity, Derib’s childhood in art takes on the air of a fairy tale. Nurtured by his father’s work and the drawings of Jijé – his idol – Franquin, Morris, Hergé, Uderzo and Peyo, the future comic book artist built his artistic landscape. “I’m self-taught, so I copied everyone else’s work for years before finding my own style,” he explains.

It was at Peyo, in Brussels, while he was earning his first wages “smurfing” the adventures of the famous little blue men, that Derib developed his personal projects in parallel. He drew Pythagore and then Yakari, who, under the pen of scriptwriter Job, alias André Jobin, became the sympathetic hero of adventures published monthly throughout Switzerland. In 1970, the young Indian and his faithful Little Thunderbolt began to enjoy great success. Translated into many languages and made into animated TV series, the popularity of the story has never waned, with a new album scheduled for release in 2018 and a feature film project.

From 1974 onwards, Derib gave life to another legendary face of comics with Buddy Longway, which he illustrated, colored and wrote the script for for the first time. This depiction of the life of a family of trappers in the Midwest was also an opportunity for Derib to express his passion for horses, which he sketched with unrivalled talent. Since the 1990s, he has been exploring the realistic vein of his art. Both in terms of line and narrative. Jo, No Limits and Pour toi Sandra deal with AIDS and prostitution in stories that touch the heart. His view of reality is also expressed in works such as Le Galop du Silence and Tu seras Reine, a tribute to the cows of the Val d’Hérens, a region to which he remains very attached.

In his studio set up in part of the family home where he was born, in La Tour-de-Peilz, he is currently working on a comic strip about the Glacier Patrol, with his son Arnaud on the script, as well as a second project paying tribute to the painter Ferdinand Hodler. Derib still works the old-fashioned way, “just with paper, pencil, eraser and lots of documentation”, 10 hours a day. “I couldn’t go a day without drawing. It’s second nature to me.”

In the Derib family, I ask…

In the de Ribaupière family, creativity transcends generations. Son of painter François de Ribaupierre, Derib worked for many years with his wife Dominique, who lent him her watercolorist talents to add color to Yakari. For several years now, she has been pursuing her own projects, exhibiting them at Carré d’as, a café-gallery in Montreux run by their son Arnaud de Ribaupierre. The family also owns its own publishing house, AS Créations.