'Les Aventures d'Antoine et Victor' - 'L'Ingénue et le Dictateur'.
Jean Lucas was a Belgian painter and illustrator. As a comic artist, he flourished in the 1980s with, among others, the satirical adventure series 'Les Aventures d'Antoine et Victor - L'Ingénue et le Dictateur' (script by Thierry Groensteen, 1981) and 'Le Secret de la Lune au Temple du Soleil' (1985). Some of his works are notable for ridiculing Freemasonry. He should not be confused with French comic writer Jean-Philippe Lucas.
'Le Secret de la Lune au Temple du Soleil' (The man in the final panel is Pope John Paul II.).
Life and career
Jean Lucien Camille Claeys was born in 1926 in Brussels. The name used to sign his comics work appears to have been a pseudonym: 'Jean Lucas'. He was strongly influenced by Belgian fantasy authors like Thomas Owen, Marcel Thiry and Jean Ray (A.K.A. John Flanders), and the French fairy tale writer Charles Perrault. Lucas studied decorative arts, painting and advertising art at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels. Between 1950 and 1952, he lived in Congo, where he worked as a cartographer. Back in Belgium, Lucas became a freelance advertising illustrator, painter, humorist and storyteller. He passed away in 1997.
Comics career
In 1970, Lucas published 'C'est la Faute à Lucifrère', a series of satirical drawings about Freemasonry (in 1988 this book was republished by Copela S.C). A more straightforward adventure story, though with political-satirical undertones, was his comic book 'Les Aventures d'Antoine et Victor - L'Ingénue et le Dictateur' (Glénat, 1981), scripted by Belgian comic historian and journalist Thierry Groensteen. Although the back cover of this album announced a follow-up story, 'Les Compagnons du Mashamba', this comic was seralized in the magazine Circus in 1982, but doesn't appear to have received a book publication. Two other comic artists for whom Groensteen once scripted comics have been Patrice Cablat and Glem.
Lucas returned to poking fun at freemasons with the ironic comic book 'Le Secret de la Lune au Temple du Soleil' (RCO Bruxelles, 1985), which also scripted himself. It is unknown whether he was a freemason himself.
Jean Lucas also contributed to the book 'Il Était une Fois... Les Belges' (Lombard, 1980), a collection of columns and comic pages published at the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Belgium's independence. Lucas' contribution accompanied a text by Alain Viray about the tensions between French poet Charles Baudelaire and Belgian illustrator Félicien Rops. In 1981, he contributed an article about Willy Vandersteen, titled 'Une Recette à la Flamande', for issue #51 of the comics information magazine Les Cahiers de la Bande Dessinée (1 October 1981).
Jean Lucas' contribution to 'Il Était une Fois... les Belges' (1980). Dutch-language version. He illustrated a text by Alain Viray about 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire who stayed in Brussels in 1864. When Baudelaire met illustrator Félicien Rops he tried to seduce his nude model. Unfortunately for him she already had an affair with Rops, causing the author of 'Les Fleurs du Mal' to dismiss his stay in Belgium with the frustrated pamphlet: 'Pauvre Belgique' ('Poor/Pathetic Belgium')