Jean Boullet was the son of a cat fur trader on the
Avenue d'Italie, Henri Boullet, who committed suicide by hanging. In his catholic childhood, he spent his summers in
Isdes, in a house he would keep. He began to paint in 1942, mainly portraits. He made a name for himself as a draftsman and illustrator in
Saint-Germain-des-Prés immediately after the war. He illustrated both a book by Daniel-Rops, the Catholic writer (This face that looks at us), and the sulphurous work - banned by censorship - by
Boris Vian, I will go to spit on your graves, texts of
Edgar Poe,
Raymond Asso, poems by Villon,
Verlaine. In 1948, he was the author of the sets for the play J'irai cracher sur vos graves which Boris Vian took from his homonymous novel and which he signed with his real name. Jean Boullet is also a film critic who venerates the fantastic and horror films that can be seen at the Midi-Minuit cinema on the Grands Boulevards. To show the even rarer films that he loves, he set up a private film club in his house on rue Bobillot: the Société des Amis de Bram Stoker. He will also be with Michel Caen, Alain Le Bris and
Jean-Claude Romer, the co-founder of the film review
Midi Minuit Fantastique (1962-1971). This magazine was published by
Éric Losfeld. Midi Minuit Fantastique was dedicated to fantasy, horror and science fiction films5. Jean Boullet retired from writing in 1966. Fundamentally libertarian, anticlerical, enemy of established orders and personally launched into a frantic quest for the bizarre and the forbidden, Jean Boullet is also passionate about many other themes: sexology, illusionism, magic, demonology, popular mythology… In December 1965, he opened a bookshop, Le Kiosque, at 79, rue du Château, specializing in these themes and in collectable comics. Crippled with debts, he closed shop at the beginning of 1969, and in August, he moved to Algeria, to
Ouargla to run a bookstore there. On several occasions, he travelled to the Maghreb, notably to Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania, but also to Senegal and Sudan, from where he brought back many drawings. During the summer of 1970, he left Ouargla for the south and undertook a trip while keeping his bookstore. During one of the stages of this trip, at the end of December, he was discovered in Tébessa, south of Constantine, according to the Algerian police report, hanging from a tree. In the book, Jean Boullet: Le Précurseur” by Denis Chollet, published in 1999, it is not known whether it was murder, suicide or a sexual thing that had gotten out of control. According to the writer
Roger Peyrefitte, Jean Boullet was stabbed to death. Guy Loudmer, Hervé Poulain, and Pierre Cornette de Saint Cyr dispersed his workshop in Paris on April 23, 1971. == Homoeroticism ==