Obituary on Paul Derouet

The German and Franco-German comic book scene has lost one of its most important supporters, networkers and bridge-builders

In the early hours of 22 May, following a long and serious illness, Paul Derouet passed away peacefully in his now French homeland, surrounded by his daughters. “Je suis prêt. I think I’ve had an interesting life. C’est la fin, c’est tranquille.” This is how he bid farewell to his family and friends.

Paul Derouet was born in 1947 in El Jadida, Morocco. During his studies, he was among the activists of the 1968 protests in Paris, where he met Ariane Mnouchkine and Jean-Paul Sartre. After completing his studies, he worked for several years as a special needs teacher in Nîmes. In 1980, love brought him to Germany, where he founded the illustrators’ agency Becker-Derouet together with Hartmut Becker. Later, he represented both established artists and up-and-coming illustrators through his agency Contours.

Paul Derouet was part of the founding generation of the Erlangen International Comic Salon and remained closely connected to the festival until the very end. Erlangen owes him countless legendary solo exhibitions, including those by Jean Giraud (alias Moebius), Lorenzo Mattotti and Jacques Tardi, as well as major group exhibitions such as “Manhua – Comics in Contemporary China” or “Illustrating History: Comics from the Arab World”, major projects for which he undertook extensive research trips to the relevant cultural regions. As early as 1986, when there was still no comic training available in Germany, Paul Derouet founded the Franco-German Illustrators’ Seminar, which continues to take place annually in Erlangen under the name International Comic Seminar and from which numerous German comic stars have emerged.

Above all, however, Paul Derouet was and remains a highly respected and popular bridge-builder, networker and enabler in both France and Germany, acting as a translator, agent, curator, advisor and generous yet modest patron behind the scenes. In 2018, he was honoured with the Max und Moritz Special Jury Award. Isabel Kreitz, an artist who shared a close friendship with Paul Derouet, concluded her laudatory speech at the time with the following words:

“Although I did not end up becoming Franquin’s successor, I know, three seminars and two decades later, how much I have benefited from Paul’s optimism and his work. The fact that there is a significant German comics scene today is also thanks to Paul Derouet, who discovered, motivated and supported so many artists whose work you now read, print, exhibit and review. If all the artists, publishers, editors, comic book dealers and readers who feel addressed could perhaps stand up briefly... Then you’ll get a sense of it.

Dear Paul, thank you very much from all of us!”