Cartoonist Babar passed away | The standard

Babar, the roguish elephant who has been making children’s hearts happy for decades, is in mourning. Its artist, the Frenchman Laurent de Brunhoff, died in Florida at the age of 98.

It was Brunhoff’s mother, Cécile, who invented “the little elephant that becomes king” almost a century ago as a bedtime story. Her husband Jean published it in book form in 1931. He would sign six more albums until he died in 1937.

At the age of 21, his son, who had studied painting at the Paris Academy, took over the torch: he designed and drew twenty more albums, which were published in dozens of languages ​​and sold millions of copies. “By continuing with Babar, I have allowed my father to live on,” he always said.

Laurent de Brunhoff was also a first-class businessman who quickly saw the commercial potential of his figure: there are more than five hundred Babar derivative products on the market, from the obligatory posters to school bags, bedding and wallpaper to perfume and toys.

The born Parisian has lived in Key West since his marriage to the American writer Phyllis Rose. At the end of February he suffered a cerebral infarction, after which he received palliative care at home. He died on Friday. (krs)