Pénélope Bagieu: "" The Strates "is a bit like a step after therapy"

• This Wednesday, Pénélope Bagieu unveils “Les Strates”, an autobiographical comic strip.

• The author recounts her early childhood or her adolescence in snippets, in a story as funny as it is moving.

• "20 Minutes" interviewed her on the occasion of the release of this new book.

After paying homage to cheeky women and revisiting

Roald Dahl's

, Pénélope Bagieu looks at a whole different story: her own.

The author unveils this Wednesday a comic strip entitled

, an autobiographical story as funny as it is moving to tears, in which she shares personal experiences, from her childhood to her young adult life.

She interweaves stories that are sometimes serious, sometimes light, evokes with sincerity the loss of loved ones or her carelessness and casts a gentle and tender gaze on the little girl and the young woman she once was.

On the occasion of the release of this new book, Pénélope Bagieu answered questions from

.

How did this project get started ?

These are stories that I have written over the past few years, in a very personal way and telling myself that it was for me.

I don't think I would have succeeded if I had told myself someone else would read them.

It was halfway between exercise and a little break.

I find it super pleasant and easy to tell stories that you know by heart, taking the character yourself.

We know how to draw ourselves, make expressions.

After a while I had quite a few, I thought to myself that it had been very pleasant to write and that in general it had been the case for all my other books.

This is also the only specifications: if it's cool to write it is because it has to be made into a book!

What does the title of this book mean?

I liked the idea of ​​this sectional view of a cliff where you can see all the successive layers of different colors that time has left.

He created like a mille-feuille, an accumulation of events ...

The things that happen to us when we are children and teenagers constitute us, they have piled up, they have not disappeared.

Even those that are at the bottom.

They are part of a whole and can always be accessed.

Hence the fact that this story does not unfold chronologically, but through different eras in a little more disjointed way?

I try to get back as close as possible to how the memories come back to me.

Some also respond to each other so it's important to have a little key to understanding to give a different resonance to things that happen next.

And at the very end, when I was done, I found something was missing but I couldn't figure out which one.

Then I added the story of my grandmother because it lacked the immense love and tenderness that I grew up with and which is so much a part of me.

Do you speak several times about the loss of loved ones in this book, particularly difficult stories to tell?

No, because, precisely, these are stories that come full circle for me. They took place at least twenty years ago, I wouldn't have had this look at more recent things at all. These are anecdotes that I have marinated, analyzed so much… It's a bit like the post-therapy stage, I have finished breaking them down and understanding them and now I put them at a distance, enough so that they are part of me and that I can speak about them without any problem. And for all those stories that are hard to tell, the good thing about comics is that I have tools that allow me to talk about them without putting words into words. The theme that runs through all of these stories, and I didn't realize it until the end, is learning to lose. We lose cats, people, a form of recklessness… But that's what makes us grow.The death of my grandmother for example, I was old enough to talk about it with her, to express to her with my big baby immaturity the fact that I did not want her to die, that I was trying to refuse death. . But I learned to deal with it, it accompanies me and it's not at all a sad story. The big transition to adulthood is getting used to the idea that you end up losing everything.

The book also discusses the loss of innocence. Several of these stories relate in particular to sexual assaults that you suffered at different ages. Was drawing them a search for reparation or liberation for you?

No, but there is a remedy in one thing. I realized that what all these stories had in common was my inability to talk about it, like the majority of women who do this. Out of shame, out of fear of the consequences, out of denial… Now I do more than just talk, I manage to write them, draw them and tell them to people I don't know. I cannot fix what happened and I do not blame myself at all for the attitude I had at the time because, when you are a victim, you do well what you can. One of the reasons I told myself that this story had its place in this book is that not to put it in, it would have been lying. You can't claim to make a collection of stories that tell what happened to you when you're a woman if you don't talk about it,because unfortunately it is part of all of our lives. You had to make an honest portrait of a young girl growing up.

And also because I know I'm not the only one, I know the importance of seeing testimonials from people who have gone through the same thing.

To tell yourself that it happens to all of us and that we are not the only one who has not managed to talk about it.

I love hearing stories of similar experiences that make me realize it wasn't my fault.

We always say it's great, that speech is free.

The problem is not to free speech, it always has been, we speak.

But no one is listening.

To develop listening to the word, it is necessary to flood with words.

In "Strates" you take a very tender and benevolent look at the child and the young girl that you have been.

You praise his courage and his way of daring.

Bringing this comic to life has it enabled you to measure how far you've come?

Thoroughly! In the story where I get raked by this guy at the music party, the conclusion came to me spontaneously. I really wanted today's me to go see this 16 year old kid and say "But you're awesome!" In general, the treatment of adolescence, in comics and in fiction, is always through the prism of derision. We make fun of teenagers because everything is a bit laughable with them. When we see photos of us during this period we are often badly dressed, we have a bit of a dirty face, somewhat ridiculous fights ... But we always forget that it is part of us. And all we have to go through and go through at this time is such a lousy period… The teens are holding up and for that bravo! I told myself that I shouldn't be too hard on myselfthat I also remember what everyday life was like at that age.

It is true that we tend to take a rather hard look at this period ...

Yes and ridicule our sorrows while when we are a teenager we live so much harder!

It's normal to put yourself in impossible states, to be desperate to tears, madly in love and want to die ... We are a ball of emotions.

Then we'll just be a lukewarm, half-hearted version of that.

What I like about stories about adolescence, whether in comics, series, movies, is when they are told at the same eye level and not with a jaded adult gaze and cynical.

Teenagers should not be made fun of, it sucks as a springboard… And in general, self-mockery is hard on oneself, it's dangerous and it's a bit double-edged, that's what Hannah says Gadsby in his

show

.

When the humorous spring is always self-deprecation and the fact of breaking our mouths all day to make people laugh, we spoil ourselves.

You have to try to be nice to yourself.

You said that the public tends to praise the autobiographies of men in comics and to downplay the autobiographies of women who would be perceived as "stories of chicks".

Do you think that over time they manage to get rid of this image?

They don't get rid of anything, they continue to be exactly the same. Opposite the gaze changes a little in the sense that it requires a very big deconstruction to ask why we denigrate these stories. Why are they so little universal when they concern half of humanity? And even if they only concern women, that's really a lot of people! Why is it an audience that has less the right to have stories about it? To tackle this issue is to try to unravel so much misogyny. For a very long time, the female autobio in comics could only be done by apologizing, trying to reassure readers that it wouldn't talk too much about female subjects.Ten years ago I wouldn't have made this book because I would just apologize for it by saying to myself "don't tell too much about women, try to do something more universal". Today it doesn't scare me at all to tell myself that I'm talking about women. I do not believe at all that it concerns only them and I find that the way was not badly opened by the very young authors. All the same, they are the ones that serve as lessons for us “old” authors, because they forcefully educate a readership. They don't apologize. They do not ask themselves if the subject is universal or if it is not universal enough, they tell what they have to say.Today it doesn't scare me at all to tell myself that I'm talking about women. I do not believe at all that it concerns only them and I find that the way was not badly opened by the very young authors. All the same, they are the ones that serve as lessons for us “old” authors, because they forcefully educate a readership. They don't apologize. They do not ask themselves if the subject is universal or if it is not universal enough, they tell what they have to say.Today it doesn't scare me at all to tell myself that I'm talking about women. I do not believe at all that it concerns only them and I find that the way was not badly opened by the very young authors. All the same, they are the ones that serve as lessons for us “old” authors, because they forcefully educate a readership. They don't apologize. They do not ask themselves if the subject is universal or if it is not universal enough, they tell what they have to say.They do not ask themselves if the subject is universal or if it is not universal enough, they tell what they have to say.They do not ask themselves if the subject is universal or if it is not universal enough, they tell what they have to say.

Who do you think of, for example?

Mirion Malle for me is truly an extraordinary author, with a talent for drawing and writing.

Authors of my generation can only admire her choice of subjects and her freedom of tone.

More contemporary with me, there is also Diglee for example, who took it all in the face with her first stories… She has not deviated from her subject at all, she has done her thing, she writes better and better. better, she pulls out collections on poets, with incredible talent.

And people adapt, they follow, read and that's great.

These younger authors are lessons for me.

It's funny because every time I am asked if I have any inspirations among the authors who were there before me.

But it is not in this direction that we must look, it is in the other.

You were appointed president of the National Film Center's Selective Fiction and Animation Committee, you received prestigious awards, there is even a library that bears your name. Would you have imagined all this when you were this little girl and her teddy bear on the ski?

When I was very little yes, absolutely!

I had dreams of greatness, I wanted to be Queen of America anyway, that's the job I wanted to do when I was little!

Then there was the brutal ax of the reality of adolescence and the evening esteem at minus 50… When I was a teenager my dream was to tell myself that it would be great if I had a job that left me time to draw in the evening.

We were relatively far from living it while being happy, drawing every day and having honorary things in addition… But that did not prevent me from doing things with so little ambition.

And yes it would be great to say to this little girl "Keep drawing, it will be great!"

"

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• Comics

• Adolescence

• Culture

• Design

• Autobiography

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