Comic strip: Clément Oubrerie, designer of “Aya de Yopougon”, died at the age of 59

French comic book author Clément Oubrerie, designer of the “Aya de Yopougon” and “Pablo” series, died on Sunday at the age of 59, the Dargaud publishing house announced on Monday.

“His palette, his sense of cutting, the expressiveness of his characters, the virtuosity of his drawing” have made him “a pillar of comics,” praised the publisher in a press release. “Clément Oubrerie leaves comics a poetic, joyful and protean legacy,” he added.

Born in 1966, Clément Oubrerie began his studies at the School of Graphic Arts before leaving for the United States, where he began his career as a children’s illustrator and released his first albums.

Saga of 8 volumes

In 2005, with screenwriter Marguerite Abouet, he published the first volume of “Aya de Yopougon”, which tells the story of the life in the 1970s of Aya, a 19-year-old Ivorian living in Yopougon, a working-class district of Abidjan.

Crowned best “First album” at the Angoulême festival in 2006, this comic launches a saga which now includes eight volumes and has been translated into more than fifteen languages.

In 2013, he co-directed with Marguerite Abouet the animated feature film adaptation of the first two volumes of Aya, produced by the studio “Autochenille Production” which he founded with the designer Joann Sfar and the director Antoine Delesvaux.

From 2012, he began the series “Pablo” with his partner, the screenwriter Julie Birmant, dedicated to the youth of the painter Picasso in Montmartre. This collaboration in the form of documentary fiction continued with other artists such as the American dancer Isadora Duncan (“Once Upon a Time in the East”, 2015) and the painter Salvador Dali (“Dali, Before Gala”, 2023).