The disappearance of designer Alain Crétien

Unmissable meetings of magazines Shepherd and Goat, Alain Crétien’s drawing took a funny and unusual look at professional news in the sheep and goat sectors. Unfortunately, there will be no new ones since Alain Crétien died suddenly on January 26 at the age of 62.

First sketches in magazines Shepherd and Goat It dates back to the early 1980s. A self-taught artist, he illustrated technical advice and agricultural information for sheep and goats. His light lines and always subtle humor depicted mischievous goats and sheep with very human behaviors and thoughts. His paintings were published Shepherd earned him the 2019 and 2022 Editor’s Choice Awards for Agriculture, Countryside and Hunting Press.

Sheep farmer for 30 years, cartoonist in magazines since 1983

In parallel with these illustrations for our magazines, the Animal Husbandry Institute and many other organizations, Alain has been involved in sheep farming for more than thirty years, bringing animals and situations closer to reality. After many years of shepherding, in 1986 he engaged in sheep farming on the Larzak plateau with his flock of Karaface sheep. He only recently sold his herd, focusing more on graphic art. This figure of Larzac was highly regarded at the time for his Saint-African humor, playful spirit, culture and artistic talent.

The editors of the two magazines, as well as the Animal Husbandry Institute, with whom he occasionally cooperates, express their deepest condolences to his family and relatives.

Homage to Alain Crétien by Hubert Germain

La Canourgue, Loser, March 1983, in CFPPA.
Curly-haired guy spends the “sheep diseases” module scrawling on the edges of his binder – or other people’s.
During the break, I sneak a peek: laughing my ass off!

Monique Simon, editor Goaton the phone:
– How to describe your opinion about homeopathy? Aren’t we going to post pictures of the pellets anyway?
– Well, I don’t know… humorous drawings, maybe?
– But I don’t have a designer and we will finish our work after tomorrow, then?
– Wait, I’ll see sometimes…

In 1983, the fax had not been invented, but the Post Office was doing well: it had ten drawings to sort, and on time.
” A man by a man » : It was with this schoolboy joke (a cruder version of which had been rejected) that Alain arrived Goat. Shepherd will follow shortly. Readers know the rest. Style, look, everything is already there… And ideas, lightning fast: “ pika? What is this ? Yes, then I would see a lamb on its mother’s back, it wants to graze, but doesn’t know… »

Bengouzal, Larzac: altitude 850 meters, prevailing winds: all.
We tried hard to dissuade him: Blacks? But the Causses are not Scottish! You need a thousand hectares to become a lord… We don’t have bonuses like those in France. What about grass? What about water? What about fences? They can’t be bound… But the lambs, how are you going to sell them? Talking all evening.
He was smiling. He fought behind his blacks for thirty years, always smiling – well, a little less at the end. Blackface, they always have, let’s say, like him” playfulness in advance and they own you wear them out.

June 1996: a pair of wolves appear out of nowhere and inevitably settle around Bengouzal. Big beatings with pots and old guns, watchful nights – since the blacks can’t go back to the sheepfold, let’s see. He becomes the hero of the Striptease episode in FR3. He made everyone laugh who saw him sitting in the tent with a hurricane lamp, a rifle in his sleeping bag and hugging his master. In a quarter of France, a world that never imagined that the agonizing nights and knotty mornings would quickly become a routine, demoralizing and stupid task for many.
He failed to shoot the animal and did not describe his article Shepherdthis time.

2022, Saint-Affrique
Alain is very busy. In addition to the Institut de l’Elevage and its magazines, the artist faster than his shadow works on the Paysanne Confederation, all stripes associations, Corsicans and Basques, MSA, driving and protection dogs, many small and large projects. , Avem to Senegal… This is our Cabo, some say, our Pétillon, others think. We’re thinking about F’murr too, of course. But this is Alain, this is Ben.
We see his paintings pumped into courses and textbooks, reproduced in many practice reports and dissertations, and hanging on our walls and t-shirts.
A few times we meet around a blog project about sheep diseases, autopsies, predation… At Café du Foirail, because it’s too hot or too cold at home or there’s not enough time to tidy things up…
The day after Christmas, the door closes and the phone rings in a vacuum. The name disappears from the label with its familiar spelling, a feeling of uneasiness, foreboding? But at Le Foirail I was immediately reassured: he spends his holidays in Var with his family. wow And then, a month later … But who is going to scratch, now, in the margins Goatof Shepherdand everywhere?
Thank you Catherine, Vincent and Renaud, Ginette and Jean-Paul and everyone who accompanies you, readers who follow you.
You will not soon be erased from our memories.

© A. Chretien