Just like many of his future colleagues, he takes evening classes in advertising and decorative arts at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels. His first publication takes place in 1962, in the monthly SAMEDI-JEUNESSE: “Calypso mène la danse”, a short complete story about a little pirate.

He joins the workforce of the Real Press agency as an apprentice where he has to do the lettering and reassembly of various foreign series and photo-novels. At the same time he makes illustrations for religious magazines for children (e.g. BONJOUR, TREMPLIN) and cartoons for Flemish political parties in the opposition, under several pseudonyms.

After several complete short stories based on scripts by Jacques Acar for the weeklies TINTIN (1964) and PILOTE (1965), he becomes the assistant of Hurey (Hugo de Reymaeker) and helps him with the backgrounds of several stories in TINTIN. An advertising agency orders comic strips about Bibendum from him, starting in 1966, for various promotional Michelin booklets, mainly for South Africa.

He true debut as an author is in this same period, with “Bertje Kluizenaar” in the weekly LIBELLE/ROSITA and “Le Mystère de Mornetour” for the newspaper SUD-OUEST.

In 1967, he seems to be in great demand. He takes over the characters with gags from Marc Sleen in PATS: “Les Joyeux Lurons” and “Célestin Radis”. He also creates, for the agency I.F.S. the daily series “Bi-Bip”, about cheerful aliens, published virtually all over Europe. The abbey of Averbode regularly asks for drawn series for its Flemish publications: “Jip” (1967), “Pickelby” (1969), “Willie Wervelwind” (1969), “Dick & Doortje” (1979) and, particularly, the series “Annie en Peter”, of which ten books will be published by Standaard Uitgeverij in Antwerp as of 1981 (several “Annie en Peter” books are also available in other countries).

In 1969 he proposes “Oskar, de ontdekkingsreiziger” to PATS. Oskar is one of his favourite characters, but the gags of this explorer are short-lived. A year later he links up with scriptwriter Daniel Janssens to develop the gags, followed by the serials, of “Kramikske van de Bakker” in DE VOLKSMACHT. The young baker’s apprentice will feature in numerous books printed by the newspaper HET VOLK, because his adventures are greatly appreciated by in Flanders, particularly in the milling industry.

His “Lutti-Kids” bring some joy in the ZIE-MAGAZINE in 1979, but the overworked Jean-Pol is forced to restrict himself to “Kramikske” and “Annie en Peter” until the early 90s.

He then illustrates a collection of promotional booklets for children’s clothing with the character “Nikkel” and hits the jackpot when he accepts a job to illustrate the two most famous characters of Flemish television. He makes a comic strip hero of the mascot dog and host of the humoristic and immensely popular “Samson” shows of BRT (Flemish Belgian Television, now VRT). For this series he has created four books a year since 1993, with increasing success in Flanders and the Netherlands.

He and Berck, his near-neighbour, are two of the best representatives of the Louvain School, offering frankness, exciting action and gentle fun aimed especially at young readers. Surprisingly, they never work together, although their styles show a strong resemblance. In addition, over the last twenty years, the apprentices launched into comic strips by Jean-Pol were subsequently often hired as assistants by Berck for his various series.

It was quite a logical step, therefore, for Jean-Pol to accept succeeding Berck in 1994, after his retirement, for “Sammy”: nobody would be better suited to take over and continue the characters created with so much joy by Cauvin to bring the America of the 20s back to life…