Denis Lebrun

'''Denis Lebrun''' (born April 30, 1958) is a comic strip artist best known for his collaboration with Dean Young on the ''Blondie'' comic strip.

==Comic strips== Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Lebrun entered the comic strip field in 1975 with ''Rolling with Roger'' in the ''Tampa Neighbor'' newspaper. In 1976, Lebrun had a daily strip, ''Aw Heck'', in the ''Tampa Times'' until 1979. ''Aw Heck'' then appeared in the ''Clearwater Sun'' from 1979 until 1980.

==''Blondie''== Lebrun originally assisted on the King Features Syndicate comic strip ''Blondie'' as early as 1977, furnishing the strip's owner Dean Young with gag scripts.<ref name="part1">Moriaty, William. [http://www.crazedfanboy.com/nolansnewsstand02/laflapcr139.html "Interview with Denis Lebrun"] (Part one). ''La Floridiana''. September 12, 2002.</ref>

In 1982, Lebrun became ''Blondie'''s assistant illustrator to head artist Mike Gersher. In this capacity, Lebrun inked the lettering, backgrounds and incidental and secondary characters of the strip.<ref name="part1"/> Gersher left the strip in 1984 and was replaced that same year with veteran comic strip illustrator Stan Drake. Drake was the head artist of the strip until his death in 1997. Cartoonist Jeff Parker assisted with the production of the daily strip from 1996 until Lebrun's departure.<ref name="part2">Moriaty, William. [http://www.crazedfanboy.com/nolansnewsstand02/laflapcr140.html "Interview with Denis Lebrun"] (Part two). ''La Floridiana''. September 2002.</ref>

In May 1997, Lebrun took over full artistic responsibilities of the strip and was the lead artist until 2005. His final illustrations appeared in the Sunday, July 31, 2005 edition of the strip. The last Lebrun signature was on the September 3, 2005 strip<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://blondie.com/comics/september-3-2005/|title = Blondie}}</ref> According to comics historian R. C. Harvey, Lebrun was succeeded by John Marshall, although Marshall remained uncredited until Sunday, January 7, 2007. Marshall had been assisting Lebrun and Jeff Parker on the daily ''Blondie'' since December 2002.

==Digital Dagwood== During his tenure with ''Blondie'', Lebrun introduced changes to the appearance and production of the strip. Almost immediately after taking the helm, Lebrun began to modernize it by updating Dagwood's wardrobe, replacing dial phones with touch-tone phones, adding computer terminals to Dagwood's place of work and replacing paper charts with digital presentations.<ref name="part2"/> In spite of these changes, Lebrun kept the appearance of the strip close to the style of previous ''Blondie'' veteran artist Jim Raymond.

As early as 1985, Lebrun began to use the computer as a means to streamline and modernize production. Originally, he employed the conventional tools and materials used by earlier ''Blondie'' artists: steel pen points (originally Gillot 1290s, later Hunt 103 or 104s for the line work and filed-down Speedball A-2s for lettering), Strathmore two-ply plate finish paper and Pelikan drawing ink. By January 2002, Lebrun made the strip's production fully digital, abandoning paper, pencil and ink in favor of the PowerPC G4.<ref name="part2"/>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== *[http://www.denislebrun.com/ Denis Lebrun Studio Portfolio site]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lebrun, Denis}} Category:1958 births Category:American comic strip cartoonists Category:Living people Category:Blondie (comic strip)