Roba's innocence has not died

The Belgian cartoonist, Jean Roba, creator of the 'Boule and Bill' comic strip, died on Wednesday, June 14 in Brussels. He was 75. Daniel Couvreur hails his signature naivety. "Thanks to Boule, the model little boy, and Bill, the mischievous cocker spaniel, Roba became a legend at the 'Spirou' newspaper and at the Belgian Comic Strip School. This ideal world, with its immutable poetry, today appears quaintly old-fashioned when set against the violent images to which children are daily subjected. Yet the success of 'Boule and Bill' never abated. Roba had a secret. 'Boule and Bill move about in a happy, idealised universe', the cartoonist told us in 2003. 'Because war and unemployment is not what makes either kids or their parents laugh'. In 2003, Roba had the rare elegance to entrust his heros while he was still alive to one of his pupils, Laurent Verron."

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