storyThese authors are among the biggest sellers of comic books in France. Their success finds its genesis in an ordinary Parisian workshop. Brought together in 2002 on the initiative of Joann Sfar, they worked side by side for twelve years. Contributing to redrawing the landscape of French-language comics. And it is together that they will go to the Angoulême festival on March 17.
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We didn’t know that our country had a National Comics Society. On the first floor of a Parisian café, one morning in February, the photo session ends. The four interested can snort. They swear it was the first time they posed together. However, Christophe Blain (51), Joann Sfar (50), Mathieu Sapin (47) and Riad Sattouf (43) have been drawing side by side for exactly twenty years.
To immortalize this moment on Instagram, Joann Sfar then suggests taking a selfie. They stop. First click. We check. Riad Sattouf: “Oh no, I look really ugly. » Second attempt. Sattouf: “Ah, that’s good. » Joann Sfar : “What are we signing? The Dream Team? » Matthew Sapin: “Don’t overdo it either. » Joann Sfar : “The assholes? » Laughs. It will be both more sober and more enigmatic: “Nice reunion with the steering committee of the National Comics Society. »
Between 2002 and 2014, these four shared the same workshop, located in the lower 20e district of Paris. Twelve years who radically changed their lives and the face of French comics. Admittedly, the story of the 9e Art is full of collectives, until the heyday of Franco-Belgian comics in the 1950s, but today in a flourishing context for comics, they have simply been able to last and renew themselves.
For the first time in a very long time, all four of them will be present, from March 17, at the Angoulême festival where three authors are in the running for the grand prize (Pénélope Bagieu, Julie Doucet and Catherine Meurisse). Their historical press officer, Hélène Werlé, who has followed them since their beginnings, has reserved the same hotel for them. Joann Sfar and Mathieu Sapin wanted to share their bedroom.
A comic rooted in reality
Just today, Christophe Blain and Riad Sattouf topped the sales charts with two huge bestsellers. The first sign (with engineer and consultant Jean-Marc Jancovici) The Endless World (Dargaud, 2021), a political reflection on the capitalism of the XXe century, global warming and the urgency of economic decline, which sold 255,000 copies. Riad Sattouf has just published The Young Actor 1 (Books of the Future, 2021), account of the cinematographic birth of Vincent Lacoste – who starred in his first film, The Beautiful Kids –which sold 220,000 copies.
Joann Sfar and Mathieu Sapin have released the second volume of their secret ministry (Dupuis, 2021), an adventure as delirious as it is improbable, which features Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande launched in pursuit of a very evil character whose ambition is to annihilate the planet. At the same time, Mathieu Sapin brought together a small group of cartoonists to cover this strange presidential campaign with the aim of making an album of it. To each his own candidate. He has reserved the great favorite, Emmanuel Macron, to whom he has already devoted a comic strip (French comedy).
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