His colleague Lectrr described him as follows: “The cartoonist who was not a cartoonist, but an artist and the artist who was not an artist, but a cartoonist.”
Artist Tatiana De Munck posted the farewell message below on her Facebook page.
“Last night Benoît, artist, draftsman and master cartoonist, passed away. He might characterize situations like no other with a few pencil or marker strokes. He always drew accurately, small gestures, the citizenry dressed in costume was stripped by him once more, sometimes poignant, lonely, often incredibly funny.
The man with the big heart is no more.
He always spoke too loudly, his gestures were often too big for his body, I often thought, his laugh crackled and roared until he literally fell over. His thoughts were/were often very (loud) expressed and when he patted you on the back you literally had to be careful not to fall over. He loved Cezanne, Matisse, Luis Buñuel.
Reggiani in Dalida. The fat and the thin. Illustrator Sempé.
From people. His family. Are sweet. His dog. Of Christmas and Sinterklaas. And olive trees. And Club Brugge, of course Club Brugge. He liked French fries, chain smoking. Coffee. And wine.
(Like me, he didn’t like the color purple at all. It’s not a colorhe shouted.)
He loved the seagull which I am now posting below. She made him laugh. She reminded him of the laughing seagull from the comics by Guust Flater.
But his greatest talent was friendship. His generosity in everything. His compassion.
Always asking how you were doing, even when things were going badly for him. I’m alright, he would say. And took another drag on his cigarette and a sip of wine.
Oh, lieve Benoit.
How emptier and duller the world has become this morning. So much more colorless without your bright blue sharp look.
I kiss you, Coco. With all my heart.
I miss you already.
(And the nice shirts you always wore. 🙂
Tati”
