Gazzotti

Drawings

Bruno Gazzotti was born the 16th of September, 1970, in the upper part of Liège, Cointe. His Italian grandfather had come to Belgium to work in the mines. Living in Belgium since the age of 4 or 5, his father decided to take on the Belgian nationality and married a girl from Liège. Both teachers of physical exercise, he and his wife were passionate about the comic strips in SPIROU and TINTIN. This virus soon caught up with young Bruno.

At a very young age he teaches himself to read so that he can understand the texts that go with the images he likes so much. Spirou, Tintin, Gaston and Natacha are his favourites and he draws all day to get the knack of it. For such a shy boy, this exercise assures appreciation and encouragement from a cartoon-crazy environment.

He completes his secondary education at the Institut Saint-Luc de Liège and enrols in a higher education course in the fall of 1988, at the section of Fine Arts, but the academic nature of this type of education and his teachers´ preference of illustration over comic strips soon bore him.

In November 1988, shortly after he turns 18, he applies to SPIROU armed with a portfolio filled with sketches of varying nature (funny, realistic, semi-realistic) and several gag plates on the topic of veterinary medicine. This last project will not be used, but his versatility convinces Patrick Pinchart, the chief editor at that time, who orders a few illustrations from him for the "Zig-Zag" section and sends him over to Tome who is looking for somebody to assist Janry in the realisation of gags for "Petit Spirou".

After one test page on this character, Gazzotti is hired by Atelier Tome et Janry, and abandons his study to devote himself entirely to comic strips. His work on "Petit Spirou" begins at the 20th gag and will extend across sixty pages, including a little help with the episode "Spirou et Fantasio à Moscou".

Still, he feels particularly attracted by semi-realistic stories, and quite naturally Tome thinks of him in June 1989 to take over the illustrations for the "Soda" series which Luc Warnant wishes to drop. On the 12th plate of the third episode of this character ("Tu ne buteras point"), Bruno Gazzotti takes up the challenge and makes it a huge success.

Initially conformed to the original settings, the young talented comic strip artist develops a style of his own and further refines the series with each new book. He particularly draws on a rich documentation of thousands of photographs taken during his trips to New York. As a result of his effective and dynamic layout, the detective's adventures rank among the bestsellers.

He lives in Brussels for many years, working for Atelier Tome et Janry, but finally returns to Liège where he begins to train young artists from the Cité Ardente in semi-realistic stories, in parallel to the stories of his hero.