Born in Verviers on 30 March 1924, Raymond Macherot has his first cartoons published in the satirical weekly PAN under the pseudonym of Zara before entering into the employment, in 1953, of the drawing studio of Éditions du Lombard.
He develops his comic strip skills with several complete stories in TINTIN and plans a major realistic medieval series, but the editor prefers leaving the graphical design of his “Chevalier Blanc” to Fred Funcken. Macherot then turns to animal stories with “Chlorophylle” in 1956, and launches the parodic adventures of the sailor “Le Père La Houle”, followed by those of the very British detective “Clifton” (1959).
In 1964 he leaves TINTIN to move on to SPIROU where he is finally classified as a creator of humoristic animal cartoons with “Chaminou”, then “Sibylline” (1965), as well as the cats “Pantoufle” (based on a script by René Goscinny in 1966) and “Mirliton” (with Raoul Cauvin in 1970).
While his characters in TINTIN are taken over by several of his colleagues, he concentrates on “Sibylline” and works a while with Yvan Delporte for the scripts of the tug boss “Mulligan” (for Berck in 1969) and the first fantastic fantasies of “Isabelle” (for Will in 1970).
Making caricatures of human society through the smaller world of the meadows and woods, Macherot has sprinkled his whole work with a highly personal poetry. He still lives in the mountains of Verviers and prefers the rhythms of the seasons to the timeless hubbub of the city he never even wanted to get used to. This great classic man appreciated by all has created some of the best works in the history of the Belgian comic strip.
