Will - Lot 46

Will WILL TIF ET TONDU Dupuis Original advertising illustration, published in Spirou in 1966. Signed. India ink, watercolor and gouache on paper 24.6 × 31 cm (9.69 × 12.2 in.) Rare and beautiful direct-color drawing for an advertisement in Le Journal de Spirou. Editions Dupuis was first and foremost a printing house, and direct color was more expensive to produce than "mechanical" coloring by chromists, who were not very well paid. Over time, salaries began to cost more than coloring on bleu de coloriage, the process used by Le Lombard's competitors. Editions Dupuis came on board late in the game, when one of their colorists, Vittorio Leonardo, suggested a way of creating color without printing on blue, a coloring process he had previously patented. Such was the savings for the Marcinelle-based publisher that, by the end of the 1960s, all colors were produced by Studio Leonardo, and this for almost twenty years. Sometimes, however, it was possible to use direct color when the reprographics department wasn't too busy. This is the case here. The blue pencil indications remained on the drawing, as the blue could be filtered out in the photogravure without having to retouch the print too much.