The Dude Who Designed the Dragonforce Logo Has Been Accused of Disemboweling His 80-Year-Old Father
Jean-Pascal “JP” Fournier, a French artist credited with designing album covers and/or logos for bands such as Dragonforce, Immortal, Edguy, Imperial Triumphant, Avantasia, Unleash the Archers, and Cellador, has been accused of brutally murdering his 80-year-old father, Jean-Paul Fournier.
The French newspapers Le Parisien reports that Jean-Paul Fournier’s body was found in his home in Gières (Isère), a suburb of Grenoble, on Wednesday evening, April 1. He had been disemboweled and shot in the head with an arrow. Police arrived after being notified by Fournier’s relatives. According to Le Dauphiné Libéré, “the victim’s wife, also an elderly and sick woman, was upstairs when the police arrived”
“JP” Fournier, age 47, was then sought by the police as a suspect in the murder, Le Dauphiné Libéré says. On Thursday, April 2, JP reportedly attempted to take his own life by jumping from a bridge in the Isère river. “The suspect, who was not injured, was then immediately taken by investigators to the Grenoble police station where he was placed in police custody,” Le Parisien reports.
Jean-Pascal “JP” Fournier’s credits include both Dragonforce’s logo and the cover of their 2003 debut, Valley of the Damned; the covers of Immortal’s 1999 and 2000 albums, At the Heart of Winter and Damned in Black; Edguy’s Mandrak (2001) and Hellfire Club (2004); Impaled Nazaren’s Ugra-Karma (1993) and Nihil (2000), the latter of which features Children of Bodom’s Alexi Laiho on guitar; both of Avantasia’s The Metal Operas (2001 and 2002); both Cellador’s logo and the cover of their 2006 debut, Enter Deception; and both the logo and three album covers for Unleash the Archers, Behold the Devastation (2009), Demons of the AstroWaste (2011), and (2015).
In a 2019 inteview with Metal ‘N’ Rock For Life, Jean-Pascal Fournier admitted “that even an established illustrator will find it difficult to make ends meet” financially, and confessed that he had given up “trying to make a living exclusively with [my art].”
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