Cosey

Bernard Cosendai, who signs as Cosey, is a Swiss cartoonist, born on June 14, 1950 in Lausanne.

Biography and work

Since 1966, the young Bernard Cosendai works as an illustrator in an advertising agency. In 1969, one of his drawings wins third prize in a contest organized by Spirou.

In 1970, he meets Derib who is then the only professional comic artist in Switzerland. Cosey becomes his apprentice and colors Go West and Yakari . Derib encourages him to launch his own series.

In 1971, Cosey drew three adventures of Monfreid et Tilbury in Le Soir Jeunesse, the youth supplement of the Brussels daily, with scripts by André-Paul Duchâteau. The following year, he entered the Lausanne newspaper 24 heures , where until 1974 he created Paul Aroïd , Clarence and Séraphin Ledoux . In 1975, he entered Tintin magazine with Jonathan , a series of adventures of a young Swiss man in the Himalayas, a work considered militant in favor of Tibet. This series is very successful (nine volumes between 1975 and 1982).

In 1984, he interrupted it to make In Search of Peter Pan (which had great critical and sales success) and The Trip to Italy.

Saigon-Hanoi (1992) captures a casual telephone conversation against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and won the Best Screenplay Award at Angoulême 1993. This volume presents the great originality of disconnecting dialogues and drawings.

In 1997, Cosey returns to Tibet where he had already made five trips, with Jonathan's 12th adventure. In 2005, Cosey created a diptych for Spirou entitled Le Bouddha d'Azur, in which the theme of Tibet is treated in a more in-depth and documented way than in his previous albums. Cosey announces that he will no longer set any adventures in Tibet.

In 2008 he published issue 14 of Jonathan set in Burma, a country that Cosey visited in 2007.

On January 25, 2017, he is awarded the Grand Prix of the City of Angoulême.

Editions in Spanish

The first six adventures of Jonathan were published in two volumes by Ponent Mon. The trip to Italy and Saigon-Hanoi were published by Ediciones Junior S.A. in their collection "Trazazo libre".