Gus Bofa (born Charles Blanchot) (23 May 1883 in Brive-la-Gaillarde – 1 September 1968) was a French illustrator, known for his work on satirical newspapers and erotic novels.
Son of Colonel Charles Blanchot (1834-1918), of whom he was the 11th and penultimate child, he spent his childhood in Bordeaux then moved to Paris (his father was appointed military commander of the Senate) where he enrolled at the Lycée Henri-IV, establishment where he met André Dunoyer de Segonzac and Maurice Constantin-Weyer who would remain his closest friends.
His friend Pierre Mac Orlan said of him: “Gus Bofa is above all a writer who chose drawing to achieve his goals.
[1][2] In the aftermath of this war, which left him crippled, he began, pushed by Mac Orlan, a career as an illustrator of luxury books.
He thus portrayed Mac Orlan, Courteline, Swift, Voltaire, De Quincey, Cervantès, or Octave Mirbeau .
Bofa, who was staying in Cormeilles-en-Vexin, had no choice but to withdraw to Mauperthuis, "sheltered from the radios, the newspapers, the unbearable discussions between the deaf and the blind, on the unknowable war".