Georges Colomb

Who was Georges Colomb?

Marie Louis Georges Colomb was a French botanist, science populariser, and an early pioneer of France's bande dessinée.

Marie Louis Georges Colomb

Under the pseudonym Christophe, Colomb created comics that were popular among the French intelligentsia, yet were published in Le Petit Français illustré, a children's paper. His popular L'idée fixe du savant Cosinus featured a brilliant, absent-minded scientist. His other comics included La Famille Fenouillard; Le Sapeur Camember; Les Malices de Plick et Plock; and Le Baron de Cramoisy.

Colomb's works were comic sketches exploring the quirks of his title characters. Images to him were more vital than words in communicating with children. His frames have been said to anticipate the "visual grammar" of movies and television.

Colomb was Deputy Director of the Sorbonne's botanical laboratory. Novelist Marcel Proust was a famous student of Colomb, and seems to have taken an interest in botany from him —Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu presents botanical knowledge and speculation to such an extent that botany "constitutes an alternative lens through which the human world of the novel can be viewed."