Marcel Gotlieb was born on the 14th of July 1934 in
Paris. His
parents were
Hungarian emmigrants.
In 1962 he decided to become a cartoonist, after having worked as an office assistant for three years, as a typesetter for six years, and as a freelance illustrator for two years.
His first cartoon was "Nanar et Jujube" which was published in the "Vaillant" magazine. It was later renamed to "Gai-Luron", after the dog who was the main character in the series of books.
In 1965 Gotlib (his chosen name), started to work for the "Pilote" magazine, where he made the illustrations for "Les Dingodossiers", a series of stories by Rene Goscinny until 1967, when Goscinny left, and he took over. He changed the name of "Les Dingodossiers" to "Rubrique-a-Brac", a crazy collection of weird ideas, which some people claim to be his best work.
In 1972 Gotlib left "Pilote" and formed "L'Echo des Savanes" together with Nikita Mandryka and Claire Bretecher, one of the first comic magazines for adults. It was also one of the first magazines that was owned and published by the cartoonists and authors themselves.
Three years later he created "Fluide Glacial", a satirial comic magazine of excellent quality.
A running gag in all of his stories is Isaac Newton. Gotlib manages to always come up with a situation where an object is falling on Newton's head (e.g. a tree cut by a beaver, a pelican, a rock thrown by a toad, a sloth, a button, etc.)