Louis Forton

Louis Forton (March 14, 1879, in Sées, Orne – February 15, 1934, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye) was a French screenwriter and comic strip artist.

Louis Forton was one of the pioneers of French comic strips. He is notably the creator of the famous satirical and humorous series: Les Pieds nickelés, created in 1908, and Bibi Fricotin, in 1928, continued after his death by Gaston Callaud.

Biography Louis Alphonse Forton was born in Sées in the department of Orne on March 14, 1879. Before becoming a cartoonist, Louis Forton worked as a stable boy, then a groom, and finally a jockey. After meeting one of the Offenstadt Brothers in 1904, who began publishing illustrated magazines for youth, he was hired as an artist for the weekly magazine L'Illustré. He began his artistic career with the publication of L’Histoire du Sire de Ciremolle. Shortly after the demise of this magazine, he regularly contributed to Petit Illustré amusant, military journals such as La Vie en culotte rouge, La Vie de Garnison, as well as to Polichinelle and Petit Illustré Amusant.

For the launch of L’American illustré in 1907, he drew numerous stories such as Isidore Mac Aron, Anatole Fricotard, and Séraphin Laricot, under anglophone pseudonyms such as "Tom Hatt", "Tommy Jackson", or "W. Paddock".

His son ran the bar des Mûriers ("Aux Pieds Nickelés"), Avenue Gambetta, in Paris, and his grandson Gérald Forton became a cartoonist like him.

Publications (1928). (1928). (1930). (1931). (1933). (1934). (1935). . . . . . . . . (1937). (1935).

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