In the tumult of meetings and the frenzy of movement, nestled in a corner or in the heat of the action, six cartoonists wander through the maze of the presidential campaign.
Pencil and notebook screwed together by hand, on the lookout for the slightest detail, they crunch.
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Under the leadership of Mathieu Sapin, Kokopello, Louison, Dorothée de Monfreid, Lara and Morgan Navarro got down to a tedious and captivating exercise: leaving the tranquility of their studio to each follow one or more candidates during the presidential campaign.
Staging themselves and wielding self-mockery at will, they delivered in the collective album
Carnets de campagne,
their respective experiences.
Meetings, trips, intimate sequences, exchanges - sometimes grotesque - with the candidates, lunches off... The 240-page book offers a wide variety of chosen moments, gleaned from the strength of the stubbornness of our authors.
Because the mission was far from easy.
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“I wanted us to feel the doubts, the obstacles, the moments of dejection and euphoria
, explains Mathieu Sapin.
Very quickly,
we realized that the campaign was not necessarily going to offer a lot of twists.
The most notable fact was the arrival of Éric Zemmour who reshuffled the cards, but apart from that things were fairly clear.
Macron's late entry into the campaign, Le Pen's less offensive attitude... nothing exciting on the horizon.
We then decided to put ourselves forward and honestly this comic is more about six authors who try to follow a presidential election than about the candidates.
Guided by intuition, Mathieu Sapin, experienced in the exercise, having followed François Hollande's campaign in 2012, has developed an eclectic cast ensuring a diversity of points of view and dynamism to the story.
Antoine Angé alias Kokopello, a young author who scoured the corridors of the National Assembly for his first album
Palais Bourbon,
the cartoonist Louison who closely followed François Hollande during the last months of his five-year term, the press cartoonist Lara, the youth author Dorothée de Monfreid and cartoonist Morgan Navarro who portrayed Cyril Hanouna's presidential candidacy in
The
President.
As many authors as visions and graphic languages.
Mathieu sapin presents the project and the designers to Stanislas Guérini.
Dargaud/ the threshold
The six authors embarked on a campaign starting on diesel, battered by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have achieved a tour de force.
Through a candid and gently mocking gaze, they were able to create empathy with the reader, who even without appetite for politics, will be able to revel in tasty moments.
The general delegate formerly LREM enthusiastic about the idea.
Dargaud/ the threshold
A fruitful collective adventure
An editorial feat born a year ago.
Developed in real time and in a rather exceptional speed of execution, the work, released fifteen days after the second round, left a lasting impression on its creators.
The short nights, the perpetual watch on social networks and the press, the hours spent in the field, the difficult choice of moments to relate, the constant relationship with each other to take stock and encourage each other via a thread of discussion... The six protagonists unanimously hailed a fruitful and instructive collective adventure.
Both on the lived experience and the practice of their art.
"I compare this experience to the recording of music with several musicians,"
says Dorothée de Monfreid.
"
I compare it to military service which brings people together”
adds Louison.
“I will no longer draw Mélenchon as before,
assures the cartoonist Lara who has been sketching the candidate for years.
Looking at a photo to create a character with the codes of press cartoons is one thing, seeing it evolve is another.
"Knowing how to draw arouses admiration and benevolence which have encouraged exchanges"
Not stingy with anecdotes and comments on their feelings, they gratified us with insights into their own backstage as on-board designers.
Unsurprisingly, the one who had the most trouble was Mathieu Sapin.
He followed outgoing President Emmanuel Macron who started the campaign very late.
The seasoned draftsman was nevertheless able to sketch sequences, between discussions at campaign HQ and visits to the Élysée, of anthology.
Louison, who logically suffered from Anne Hidalgo, was not better off between popular primary, brief passage of Christiane Taubira or missed appointments, but brilliantly knew how to take her side:
"I have the feeling of having witnessed the longest shipwreck in the world.
VS'
: we already know the end of it and we observe the workings of a situation.
The Socialists were so far from a potential victory momentum.
Despite everything, I was impressed by the tenacity of the socialist candidate.
She went all the way in her candidacy, leaving no doubt."
The designer held on valiantly and was sometimes able to count on luck.
A fortuitous meeting with François Hollande at the agricultural show, in particular, will allow him to sketch a delicious sequence.
“A happy accident when
Christiane Taubira
threw in the towel, the war broke out in Ukraine and Anne Hidalgo became Mayor of Paris again.
I was beginning to be afraid of not having enough things to tell...»
Crispy anecdotes
More picturesque, the small candidates offered pretty enchanted parentheses.
Like Jean Lassalle, “
a whole poem
”, which Kokopello followed simultaneously with Valérie Pécresse.
Faced with the well-honed machine of the Republicans, where "
everything is supervised, controlled and where digging into the human is difficult
", according to the young author, the founder of the Résistons movement has installed real moments of closeness.
And provided crisp anecdotes: “
He started his campaign when he had his 500 sponsorships: he went to get them one by one in the small rural towns.
He took it a year in advance and I was able to witness those moments without any press
“, remembers – among so many other folkloric moments – the designer.
A trip to the Pyrenees alone is worth the detour.
This difference in energy between the campaigns, Morgan Navarro also felt and transcribed them, when he eyed the side of Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour: "
At the big shows of the meetings, the militants of Marine le Pen chanted his name a rockstar.
We felt the historicity of a more marked party and without too much brilliance.
On the Zemmour side, I observed more of a gallery of eclectic characters forming a sort of restless, more nervous fan club.
There was a more rebellious dimension
,” recalls the man who attended the eventful meeting in Villepinte and the election results evening in the stronghold of Jean-Marie Le Pen in Saint-Cloud:
“A highlight that crowned all offering me the opportunity to discover and explore the matrix of
In the footsteps of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Fabien Roussel, Lara does not say anything else:
“The earthiness is more on the side of the small candidates.
On the side of France Insoumise, the campaign was part of a real war plan, supported by enormous work and intense activism.
With Fabien Roussel, it was less tense.
Inevitably, the two candidates did not play the same score between a team launched to hang on the second round and a party seeking more a vote of memory, just to remember who they have been since Marie-George Buffet in 2007
.
Also less seasoned, the Greens, accompanied by Dorothée de Monfreid, led a campaign that does not lack charm under the pencil of the designer.
Parachuted into the meanders of political life, the one who has made children's literature her trademark, delicately and brilliantly flushes out the deep meaning nestled in the smallest details.
“I wanted to attend the assembly of the stage in Rouen which was to welcome Yannick Jadot, rather than being on the same train as him.
It was very windy and she could not be climbed.
Jadot did not take it as a failure and used it on the spot, the meeting was a success.
This sequence said something about the Greens, about their adaptation to the climate, about their campaign which was both very serious and on a small scale with a do-it-yourself side.
By a step aside, the assembly of a platform, one emerges from it of the direction”.
Benefits of drawing
From this adventure, the six authors have largely won the bet of telling a coherent and succulent story.
Their keen sense of storytelling shaped the jubilant nugget
Carnets de campagne.
And revealed all the virtues of drawing.
Everyone agrees in saying:
"knowing how to draw arouses admiration and benevolence which have favored exchanges"
.
Mastering the art of drawing gave them the possibility of representing the mysteries of a system that few people know.
He opened almost every door to them, a privilege sometimes envied by journalists, who, incidentally, did not hesitate to help our cheerful cartoonists
.
And the album also gives them a large place.
Mathieu Sapin ready to embark on the adventure
of Campaign notebooks
.
Dargaud/ the threshold
But above all,
Carnets de campagne
illustrates the strength of drawing:
"An album like
Carnets de Campagne
is above all a pleasure of drawing: drawing a smile under a mask, finding tricks, angles that are not possible to put everyone in a box, vary the bodily proportions of his character according to the feeling and the moment... Only the drawing allows this
”, underlines Lara.
Each of their graphic paw accurately rendered the different universes and personalities of the candidates.
Enhanced by the judicious choice of colors by Clémence Sapin, the album takes the reader through a campaign that is the antithesis of the gloom so often evoked in the media.
"Is the drawing after this album going to settle more deeply into politics for future presidential campaigns?"
asks Kokopello.
It is all the good that we wish.
And readers will be able to discuss it directly with the six authors at the Lyon BD festival, which takes place throughout the month of June and offers a meeting on Saturday June 11 at the auditorium of the Hôtel de Ville.
Campaign notebooks
, Dargaud/ le Seuil, collective work, 22.50 euros.