This dissertation documents the cartoonist’s trade in France and francophone Belgium from 1945 to 1968. Although this career has been traditionally addressed through the prism of comic art or political cartooning, this study based on a prosopographic approach and the analysis of 400 professional trajectories demonstrates that in the 1950s and 1960s, the trade was a multi-faceted one, in so far as cartoonists were equally likely to produce illustration art, political cartoons, or comics. Their dependence on the market typically brought them to rely upon multiple accounts and graphic techniques, particularly in comic magazines—the medium most closely analyzed in this study to comprehend their professional practices.The cartoonists’ versatility and dependence on the market directly conditioned how they perceived and defined their jobs in social, political, and legal terms. For most of them beingidentified as journalists became a recurring goal as the best means to take advantage of the same benefits and rights as wage-earners in post-World War II France and Belgium. Yet a minorityvalued self-employment. In their graphic productions many cartoonists fulfilled functions similar to those of journalists.Both in the mainstream press and mass-produced books they observed and recorded the values, innovations, and collective interrogations of their national societies in the postwar decades. It was against this background that comics and nonsense cartooning became established graphicforms, although they were often practiced by the same individuals. ; Ce travail s’attache à étudier la profession de dessinateur-illustrateur en France et en Belgique francophone de 1945 à 1968. La profession a longtemps été étudiée sous le seul prisme de la bande dessinée ou du dessin de presse politique. Grâce à une approche prosopographique et à l’étude de 400 trajectoires professionnelles, nous montrons que le métier de dessinateur est polyvalent dans les années 1950 et 1960, touchant autant à l’illustration qu’au dessin politique ou à la ...