Presentation & Biography
The art and life of Louis Forton
Louis Alphonse Forton was born in Sées, Orne, on March 14, 1879. Before becoming a draughtsman, he worked as a stable boy, groom, then jockey. In 1904, he met the Offenstadt brothers, who published magazines for youth. They hired him as a draftsman for their weekly newspaper L'Illustré, marking the beginning of his artistic career with the publication of L 'Histoire du Sire de Ciremolle.
After the end of this review, he regularly contributed to other publications, including Le Petit Illustré amusant, military magazines such as La Vie en panties rouge and La Vie de Garnison, as well as Polichinelle and Le Petit Illustré Amusant.
In 1907, for the launch of The American Illustrated, he created several stories, including Isidore Mac Aron, Anatole Fricotard, and Séraphin Laricot, using English pseudonyms like “Tom Hatt,” “Tommy Jackson,” or “W. Paddock.”
In 1908, he became the principal draftsman of L'Epatant. It was for this publication that he created Les Pieds nickelés in issue 9, dated 4 June 1908. He designed 1948 boards for this series. At the same time, he continued to work for magazines such as La Vie de Garnison, mon Copain du Dimanche (in 1911) and Le Pêle-Mêle (in 1924).
In 1924, he stopped drawing Les Pieds nickelés to devote himself to the creation of Bibi Fricotin in Le Petit Illustré. The following year, in 1925, he created Les
