In this episode Pénélope Bagieu appreciates cosplay.

Topics include French vs English translations, small stories, not having a boyfriend, shredded tights, deadlines, anime, cat buses, how tough being an adult is these days, and what she’s reading!

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Transcript:

Kara: Welcome back to comiXology Conversations. I’m here with Slim, and special guest Pénélope Bagieu. Welcome to the show.

Pénélope Bagieu: Thank you.

Kara: You are a very talented creator who did the book Joséphine, in English, Josephine, which is now being translated from French into English as part of the line of Delcourt books that we have on comiXology that are being translated. What was that translation process like? Seeing your book in its original French form, and then seeing it with the English words?

Pénélope Bagieu: It was the first time that I was actually able to understand one of Joséphine’s translations, because usually it’s translated into languages I don’t speak. It was pretty cool, not that I don’t like German translation or anything, but I could actually understand it so I was like, “Wow! This is Joséphine in English. That’s amazing.” It was really cool, and also the form changed a little because it was turned into little episodes, and the original form is 3 big books. That’s a whole new experience. It’s totally different. It’s like a different book. It’s great.

Kara: The pitch for Joséphine is that it’s a series of vignettes from the life of this thirty-something woman, late twenties, early thirties?

Pénélope Bagieu: Early thirties.

Kara: Early thirties. She’s single. Everyone else around her has a boyfriend and they like to rub it in, even if they don’t mean to. It’s just the things that she deals with in her life. I really enjoy that kind of storytelling. Where did you get the idea to bring this character to life?

Pénélope Bagieu: Actually it was a commissioned work at first. I was asked by a women’s magazine in France to create a character that we could make comics of every week, a one page comic every week, which is not a very common thing in France because I know it’s comic strips in newspapers in America. It’s very popular, but in France it hardly exists. They said, “Do whatever you want, but just imagine a character that will have a lot of adventures, and that she can always find something to tell about.” So I thought instead of going through complicated adventures and incredible events, maybe I should just go for something that I know about, which is being 30 and having issues fitting in. I thought, yeah. I have tons of stories from my friends. I’m sure I can make something out of it. So, that’s how I came up with Joséphine.

Matt: The format, it actually, I think, probably works to the United States’ benefit because of the format of the book. You mentioned that newspaper strip, one page and you get that vignette, as Kara mentioned earlier. I think it helps because when I read it the translation was perfect. It didn’t feel like a work that existed in another language, and it read to me very familiar as that newspaper strip. I enjoyed going back and forth to each page because it felt like a new story on each page, and it made me want to continue. I was glad that that translation worked so well. I feel like Delcourt’s English language books coming over, I think that’s a huge boon to previously untranslated works.

Pénélope Bagieu: Yeah, I think we are in extremely good hands with the translation, and all the adaptation process. We’re very lucky. We have a few French people who have been selected like the chosen ones to be part of this adventure.

Kara: When you’re creating the pages for Joséphine what was your process like? Did you write a script first and then draw? Did you do thumbnails? What was it like?

Pénélope Bagieu: Since it was for a magazine I had to deliver a page every week so I had a weekly schedule of 2 days a week at most to do it. The thing is, the final format in France is a whole book, a 60 page book. That’s 52 weeks of magazines, plus a cover, and a few thank you’s. At the beginning of the year I had to know where I was going through the year. For instance, saying at the end of the year I want her to have a boyfriend, for instance. I want Josephine to have a boyfriend at the end of the year.

I knew that around Christmas I had to be at this part of my story, in March at this part of my story, and then cut it into little bits, in 52 bits, and make sure that most people who would read it could only read one page like picking up the magazine at the hair salon or something, and never reading again. I couldn’t ask for people to be patient. There had to be something in each of the pages. It should stand alone. I was trying to find the little story within the big story every time so that you wouldn’t be like, “I don’t understand. Who is this woman? Why am I totally lost with this story?” I did a little story within a big story. That’s it.

Kara: One of my favorite one page stories was where Josephine was looking for her professional pair of tights to wear, and finally she saw that her cat was tangled up in them, and she had a presentation. She shows up at her presentation in these thigh high pink striped socks. I was like, “Been there. We’ve all done that.”

Pénélope Bagieu: But you work in comics. You don’t need to have professional looking stuff.

Matt: What about the format that you put Josephine in? Are you drawn to that format of being paid to do it every week, or do you prefer the format of ‘I’m going to create the work and then when it’s done it’s finished’?

Pénélope Bagieu: Now that I’m done with Joséphine, because I’m not doing this anymore, I realize how cool it was to have somebody over my shoulder waiting for a page every week, because otherwise I’m such a slow worker. I always have something better to do. I never go to my desk and work. At least when somebody was expecting something every week it had to be done. It’s a great opportunity to be in a magazine for that reason, because at the end of the year, no matter what, you have your book. It’s done. I wish I had that now.

Matt: Next project. What were some of your artistic influences going into the medium of graphic storytelling? What inspired you to get into that field?

Pénélope Bagieu: Accidents led me to that field. I wasn’t reading comics at all. I think the only comic I was reading when I was growing up was a manga called Gunnm. That’s all I read. It was amazing, but obviously it didn’t really inspire me because it’s so much better than what I do. I started reading comics when I started making comics actually, and not really before that. I studied animation at school. I was more into animation, Japanese and American animation, more than comics. That’s a great help too when it comes to … You have some amazing costumes walking by. I’m sorry.

Kara: No, it’s okay. We were doing that earlier. We were just saying, “Look at that! That’s from Dragon Ball!”

Pénélope Bagieu: That’s crazy. It really is crazy, and I hear that it’s … People always tell me you should see San Diego, but still, it’s amazing.

Kara: I think this is pretty on par with San Diego this year. That Mystique that walked by was amazing. I love her actual skull belt, little plastic skulls.

Matt: There are some conventions where it’s predominantly just cosplayers that go, and they all hang out, and they all take photos. It’s like a cosplayer convention.

Pénélope Bagieu: Sorry, what were we saying?

Kara: Cosplay, costumes.

Pénélope Bagieu: Yeah, costumes.

Matt: You were mentioning your favorite Japanese anime.

Pénélope Bagieu: Yeah. I studied animation, and I never thought of doing comics. The thing is, animation is a great school of drawing actually, because you have to caricature the posters, and act a lot, because you have to understand how the shoulders will work if you’re sad, things like that. The more you can do in animation, the easier it is to draw towards, and to have a very expressive drawing. I don’t regret that little detour through animation. I say detour even though I never worked in animation.

Kara: But you studied it.

Pénélope Bagieu: Yeah, I studied it. I think it was helpful.

Matt: What’s your favorite Japanese anime? Is it still something that you absorb and you love? Was there a period where you sucked in everything?

Pénélope Bagieu: That’s a tricky one.

Matt: I watched Spirited Away for the first time this year. It freaked me out.

Pénélope Bagieu: Really?

Matt: Yeah. I guess I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it was going to be more of a-

Kara: Like a children’s movie?

Matt: Quiet children’s movie.

Pénélope Bagieu: No.

Matt: And it’s not at all.

Pénélope Bagieu:  No, it’s not. Most of Miyazaki’s work is. I went to see his museum in Tokyo. That was amazing. You have this huge neko-bus. What do you call it? In Totoro you have this bus in the shape of a cat with tons of legs, and there’s a full scale bus in the shape of a cat, and only kids can get in, which is so unfair.

Kara: I thought you were going to say “cool”.

Pénélope Bagieu: No, it’s unfair. They have a 2 minute turn and then they have to get out, and next. You’re just watching it and you’re waiting for the people not to watch so you can get it, but you can’t. So, that’s very frustrating.

Matt: Probably after hours all the adults probably have parties in there and then go through.

Pénélope Bagieu: I’m sure. It must be so cool to work there, and they also have this huge Totoro and everything. It’s a great place.

Kara: Quick question. You live in the States, right?

Pénélope Bagieu: Yeah.

Kara: How long were you in France for? For most of your life?

Pénélope Bagieu: I was born in Paris and I never moved out of Paris. What an adventure. Except I went to spend part of my studies in London, but that’s all. I thought, "It’s time to move a little for a little while. I don’t know for how long, but for the moment.”

Kara: What do you think of the American comic scene compared to the French comic scene?

Pénélope Bagieu: I always thought that comics here was only about superheroes and obviously it’s not. There’s so much more to it. On my street there’s a comic book store, and I discovered a lot of things that I didn’t know about. I even started going to buy comics every week. Because in France we have a very different process. You make a book every 2 years, and there are no such things as series the way you see it in American comics. The fact that you’re waiting for the next episode like you would do for a TV show, that’s something we don’t have. I kind of get used to it because it’s pretty cool.

Kara: Is there anything in American or French comics now that you’re reading that you really enjoy?

Pénélope Bagieu: Yeah, but it’s more graphic novels.

Kara: That’s okay.

Pénélope Bagieu: Yeah? Well, I just bought yesterday the latest Adrian Tomine, and I haven’t read it yet, but it sounds awesome as usual. What else did I get? I started reading Fight Club.

Matt: Really?

Pénélope Bagieu: Yeah. It’s so cool, but it’s so slow. You have to wait for so long. Maybe I should wait until 5 years and get everything. This is what I did for Walking Dead. I started at episode 18, which was a very good thing to do because I could totally binge for weeks.

Matt: It’s hard to start a series that’s been collected like Walking Dead. When I started I read like 10 volumes and then realized I was caught up, and I had to wait every month. It’s a different reading experience. If you like reading that completed work, it changes things.

Pénélope Bagieu: Sure, and usually I’m really not patient, so when that happens I just quit. If I have to wait for too long something else is entering my mind. There’s so many books to read, and so many TV shows to follow.

Kara: We make tough choices as adults these days. What do I watch now? Well Pénélope, it was so great to talk to you. That you for taking some time out to speak to us about Josephine. Everyone check it out. It’s on comiXology.com. It’s on our app. It’s worth your time.

Pénélope Bagieu: Thank you.

(Source: SoundCloud / comiXology)