Davodeau was born in Botz-en-Mauges into a working-class family, as he explains in Les Mauvaises Gens, a book that retraces his parents' youth: born in 1942, they began working in local industry at the ages of 13 and 14 [1] and became members of the Young Christian Workers, of the French Confederation of Christian Workers then unionists of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour.

After his baccalauréat,[2] Davodeau studied at the University of Rennes 2 (department of visual arts); he then founded, with other comics enthusiasts, including his future collaborators Joub and Jean-Luc Simon, the studio Psurd.

[3] He published his first album, L'Homme qui n'aimait pas les arbres, in 1992, in the collection for young authors, "Génération Dargaud.

[4] In 2016, the cartoonists Fleur Godart and Justine Saint-Lô follow the same approach for their book Pur jus, about natural wines.

The album Cher pays de notre enfance, published in 2015, is described as an investigation into the leaden years of the Fifth Republic.