Artist

MCAF

About Jacques Lamontagne

Jacques Lamontagne
Photo credits: Luc Vidal

Artist

Canada

Adventure/Detective, Author’s Graphic Novel

Teen, Adult

Born in 1961 in Quebec, Jacques Lamontagne began by drawing in his school notebooks. The nuns responsible for his education, rather than punishing him, took advantage of his talents by asking him to represent religious scenes on the board! A first publishing contract which will earn him a salary in candy but above all the publishing bug. Comforted in his taste for illustrations, little Jacques travels with Tintin, laughs with Gaston, discovers Spirou et les hommes-bulles, spending hours detailing the seabed drawn by Franquin... He then considers the gift of his favorite cartoonists as a kind of inaccessible magical power. Jacques quickly discovers that he also possesses this power, but chooses not to exercise it right away in the comic strip. Working for advertising agencies, he became an artistic director, but preferred to give up everything to become a freelance illustrator. He then worked with advertising agencies, publishing houses and magazines based in North America and Europe. This multiplicity of contracts is an opportunity for him to try out numerous graphic styles. A client shows him the work of a popular illustrator? Jacques proves capable of reproducing his technique, which quickly earned him a solid reputation as an ultra-versatile artist. With his sometimes realistic, sometimes more rounded drawing, his approach is close to that of Uderzo, an artist who inspires him, capable of moving from humour to adventure with disarming ease... At the end of the 90's, Jacques actively works for the Quebec magazine Safarir, where he creates Bertrand le rêveur, a character capable of transforming any scene of everyday's life into a cinema scene. He also offers Les Contes d'Outre-Tombe, a fantastic series which has earned him unconditional fans! Working at the same time on the covers of several novels (for example, the successful series Amos Daragon), Lamontagne finally chose a new Everest: to become a full-time comic book author. With the Internet allowing him to better share his work, Jacques offers projects to European publishers. Success was achieved from its first series, Les Druides, published by Soleil, based on a script by Jean-Luc Istin. In 2009, still at Soleil, Jacques Lamontagne scripted the first adventure of the Yuna series, illustrated by Chinese artist Ma Yi. In 2010, the first volume of the series Aspic, détectives de l'étrange was published by Quadrants. At the same time, he wrote Van Helsing contre Jack l'Éventreur for the 1800 collection. This diptych won him the Albéric Bourgeois Award. Since then, Jacques Lamontagne has published three Shelton & Felter albums with Kennes. In 2020, for Dupuis editions, the first volume of the western Wild West is released, based on a screenplay by Thierry Gloris. The opportunity for him to offer his powerful line to a certain Martha Jane Canary, soon to become Calamity Jane... Incredible jack of all trades, at ease in all graphic tempos, Jacques Lamontagne takes his readers into all the universes he chooses to explore. After having conquered the hearts of readers in his native Quebec (winning several Boréal Awards in the process), he has now built a solid reputation in the Franco-Belgian latitudes. A complete illustrator, Lamontagne also practices sculpture, painting, but also ice hockey, a wonderful relief from the stress of creation!

Books

Wild West – Éditions Dupuis, depuis 2020 (série)

Guest at MCAF

2014, 2016, 2018, 2022, 2024