BOURGEOIS Albéric
“Editorialists are often elevated to the Senate, but not caricaturists.” The Hecklers: 231.
“Jacob” and “Passepoil” were pen names sometimes used by Bourgeois early in his career.
Born November 29 1876 in Montréal, he studied at l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
He moved to Boston around the turn of the century and was hired by the Boston Post in 1902. There he created the comic strip The Education of Annie. In addition he painted sets for the Grand Opera.
He returned to Montréal in 1904 at the invitation of Israël Tate, to work for La Patrie, where he created the cartoon strip “Les Aventures de Timothée”. He moved over to La Presse one year later and entered an association that was to last close to fifty years. He was the first Quebec cartoonist to make a consistent living from the relatively new occupation of political cartooning in the French language press. He created a traditional rural French-Canadian couple, Baptiste and Catherine, whom he used in his cartoons to reflect his own opinions about current events. His reputation grew, and he became a household word in Quebec.
He created other cartoon characters for La Presse, “Zidore”, “Toinon”, and “Pitou et son Grand-Papa”, Les Fables du parc Lafontaine, “Histoire du Canada pors les enfants, to name a few, but his most famous character was one he did not create. Père Ladébauche, was created in 1879 by the Hector Berthelot. Introduced to La Presse on March 5, 1904 by J. Charlebois, it was only when Albéric Bourgeois took it over on February 11, 1905 that it achieved its popularity.
Bourgeois was also respected as a talented writer, creating popular cabarets and several radio scripts, where he sometimes used his cartoon characters as in the case of the cabaret En Roulant Ma Boule where he used Baptiste, and Catherine .
He died 17 November1962 in Montréal.
WORK:
CARTOONIST, WRITER & ILLUSTRATOR:
BOOK GRAPHIC COLLECTION & TEXT:
Content collection & Cover book wraparound:
Albéric Bourgeois caricaturiste, Ed., Léon-A Robidoux, VLB Éditeur/ Ville Saint-Michel: Médiabec Inc., 1978.
Content collection Cover book front & back:
Les voyages de Ladébauche autour du monde. A & N Pelletier/La Presse, no date.
Content collection Cover book wraparound:
Les voyages de Ladébauche autour du monde. VLB Éditeur, 1982.
NEWSPAPER:
Content serial graphic:
Les voyages de Ladébauche autour du monde. La Presse, no date.
SOURCE:
Book:
Albéric Bourgeois caricaturiste, Éd., Léon-A Robidoux. VLB Éditeur/ Ville Saint-Michel: Médiabec Inc., 1978.
Article book:
The Hecklers. Writ. & Ed.., Peter Desbarates & Terry Mosher. McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1979: 100-101, 231, 240, 247.
The World Encyclopedia of Comic. Ed., Maurice Horn. Chelsea House Publishers, 1976: “Père Ladébauche Le (Canada)”, Writ., Maurice Horn: 547.
Article periodical:
Inks: Cartoon & Comic Arts Studies, 4-2, May 1997: “An Introduction to the Canadian Newspaper Comic.” Writ., Kenneth Barker: 18-25.
Kayak, 44, Sept. 2013: “Les aventures de Timothée”: 17.
Internet:
Archived Newspaper Strips of the 20th Century – Québecois.” Library & Archives Canada/Bibliothèque et Archives Canada. www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/comics. Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.