The Big Bang

Jean-Paul “Picha” Walravens (born 2 July 1942) is a cartoonist, screenwriter and film director. He was born in Brussels, Belgium.

Jean-Paul Walravens was so fascinated about drawing that he completed his studies at the St. Luke Institute of Fine Arts. Starting in 1960, he contributed as a caricaturist, cartoonist and illustrator for several newspapers and magazines, such as La Libre Belgique, Pan, Hara-Kiri, Harps, National Lampoon and The New York Times. His draughtsmanship was already biting and irreverently noisy. During this period, he adopted the pseudonym Picha.

In the late ’60s, he worked on an issue of the RTB / BRT, which was dedicated to pop music. The series of these issues was called vibrato, which was directed by Leo Quoilin. Some issues would be devoted to famous musician guests, like the famous guitarist and singer-songwriter Jimi Hendrix.

A passion for drawing logically led Picha to the world of comics. He became the author of several comic books, such as Picha at Club Med (1971) and Persona non grata (1975). After this period, he began making cartoons, where his sense of satire would do wonders for him.

In 1975, he wrote and directed the animated film Tarzoon, la honte de la jungle, which depicts an ancestor very, very far from Tarzan, who is ugly, cowardly, stupid and particularly obsessed with sexual matters. He then went crazy by making the prehistoric fable Le Chaînon manquant (1980), which was entered into the 1980 Cannes Film Festival, and Le Big-Bang (1987), which confirms a little more of an irreverent side from his pen. In these satirical works, Picha gives rise to a parallel world where wild sex, omnipresent, should not hide a scathing social critique.

In 1985, he starred in the short film Fumeurs de Charme, directed by Frederick Sojcher and starring Serge Gainsbourg & Bernard Lavilliers. Please note that Frederick Sojcher made a recycled version of the short film, in 1991, under the name Requiem pour un fumeur.

After the commercial failure of Le Big-Bang, Picha began to devote himself to writing, directing and creating animated television shows, such as Zoo Olympics (1992), Zoo Cup (1994) and Les Jules, chienne de vie… (1995).

In 2007, Picha, king of the politically incorrect, made his comeback in the world of animated cinema with Blanche-Neige, la suite, a pornographic version of the story of Snow White, which provided voice acting by Cecile de France and Jean-Paul Rouve. The film was presented by Picha as the “official sequel” to the classic animated film from Walt Disney. —Wikipedia.fr