After the cardboard of his Titeuf hero, Zep continues his career as an author with the zany superhero Captain Biceps, of which he is a screenwriter and whose seventh album has just released at Glénat. Invited Sunday of Isabelle Morizet in There is not a life in life, the author has confided on three aspects a little unknown of his life.
At twenty, Zep was passionate about spirituality
At the age of 20, the comic writer left regularly in monasteries for a few days, alongside Benedictines. "It's a quest for absolute that I had as a teenager, it lasted a few years and I was very interested in these theological questions," says Zep, who says he does not come " a very believing environment ".
"During the 80s, there were a lot of ideological or religious movements, I followed people who were believers so I became interested in that, I enrolled as an auditor at the theology faculty. I was found once, to go to a monastery to make a retreat, "he says. "I liked that so I continued for a few years."
From the moment Zep had children, he stopped the stays in monasteries. But he is still deeply impressed by this experience. "A few years ago, I wrote a story about a Carthusian monk, who, after 25 years of silence, left a monastery to return to Paris, for a history of succession, inheritance.He confronts world and wonders what it means to cut oneself off from the world, "says Zep, who says he is always" fascinated "by spirituality.
Zep could have become a musician ... and played with Goldman
Jean-Jacques Goldman, a long-time friend of Zep, firmly believes that the screenwriter could break into the music. In a text he wrote on the occasion of an exhibition on Zep, at the Museum of Design and Contemporary Applied Arts (Mudac), Lausanne, he tells that guitars are hanging on the walls, at home, that Zep keeps picks in his pockets or his drawers are filled with CDs and vinyls.
His pseudonym is, in this connection, inspired by the rock band Led Zeppelin. "I played in bands but I realized that I did not like being on stage," says Zep. "I'm not a showman".
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His shyness did not prevent him from accompanying a day Goldman on the stage of the Geneva Arena. "When Jean-Jacques Goldman offers you that, you do not say: 'no I have a pool'.
Zep tells a friendship shaped by the alliance between Zep's passion for drawing and that of music, which he shares with Goldman. "I made some drawings for the cover of his last album, I went to his house a few times to draw and see him recording this album, it was just awesome, we became friends and then we saw each other again. three times, "he explains. One evening, at the end of a meal, the two artists "played a little bit of both guitar". "And he said to me, 'Tomorrow we're playing together.' I believed in a gag, and we actually did it."
Jair Bolsonaro hates "The guide of sexual zizi"
The last anecdote does not concern him directly but ... Jair Bolsonaro. A year ago, when Zep's albums hit Brazil, the current Brazilian president accused him of "perverting" the youth of his country. A reaction that Zep calls "surrealist": "In Brazil, there are already very few bookstores and then the comic strip is not a phenomenon like it is in France".
On a television set, in the middle of the presidential campaign, Jair Bolsonaro had even brandished the album "The guide of the sexual zizi", to better criticize him, tells Zep. "I thought, 'What's wrong with him?' I had seen him on social networks once or twice attacking the book, he recalls, it's part of all his provocations. "
In Brazil, the extreme right-wing candidate #bolsonaro is releasing a @Zeptheworld "Guide to Sexual Zizi" on TV and denouncing the "gay kit" supposedly distributed in public schools. RIDICULE, we go beyond all levels of the #FakeNews! pic.twitter.com/86qqpbOkox
- Alban Senault (@albansenault) August 29, 2018