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Interview for the
Australian Cartoonists Association (ACA), March 2010.
Q:
Nicolas, you grew up in France then moved to Belgium,
but what made you come to Australia?
Love!!!!
I met a Canberra girl in Sydney in 2002, and then we got
married. We had the choice between Europe and Australia,
and I needed some sun, so we went to Australia. But we
are moving back to Brussels in July, after five years
spent here.
Q:
You’ve published your first cartoon at 22, can you tell
us how hard/easy it was to get that first cartoon
published?
Pretty
hard, of course. Actually, my first cartoons were
published when I was 19, in smaller publications, in
Belgium and France. My first cartoon for Le Vif/L’Express,
my main magazine for which I’ve been working for 17
years now, was published in 1993, when I was 22. I
graduated from an art school in Brussels six months
before that. So during those six months, I would do
about ten cartoons a week, leave them at the paper’s
reception desk, then wait until the magazine came out,
the next Friday, hoping for good news… to find out that
none of my work was getting published! But I didn’t give
up. There was no Internet, at the time, so I had to
physically leave the cartoons at the reception desk.
Then they
published the first one, but waited another three months
to publish the second. I never gave up. Perseverance is
at least as important as talent, in this sort of
business. The key is to convince a newspaper that you
actually work for them before they even figure it out
themselves.
But I
needed some bread and butter at the time, so I worked in
a cinema in Brussels, selling tickets and ice cream,
then drawing at night, after my shift. I did this for
three years. It took me five to actually start making a
living with it.
Q: Is
growing up in France and Belgium, surrounded by “Bandes
Dessinées”, what sparked you to become a cartoonist?
In a way,
yes, since my style owes a lot to my childhood “Bandes
Dessinées” readings, such as Astérix, Lucky Luke, Gaston
Lagaffe and, of course, Tintin. But I also come from a
family who’s always been interested in current affairs,
discussing them and debating on all kinds of issues. And
there were a lot of newspapers and magazines at home, so
I started reading the News when I was 12. Then I also
liked drawing. The most natural way to mix the two was
to become a political cartoonist.
Q: Do
you have any formal art training or are you self-taught?
Not
self-taught at all! I studied in an art school in
Brussels called L’Ecole de Recherches Graphiques, where
I specialised in illustration and graphic novelling.
Belgium is the only place in the world where graphic
novelling is considered as a normal professional
activity, therefore can be taught in school.
It was a
four-year degree and they forced us to experiment in
many fields: painting, drawing, filming, sculpture, etc.
Political
cartooning didn’t exist as such but I knew what I wanted
to do. Actually, the first workshop we did when I
arrived was “illustrating the News”. That was in October
1989, just when the Berlin Wall collapsed and the whole
world was about to change. The workshop was supposed to
go on for a week. It did for other students. I’m still
doing it…
Q: Who
are the cartoonists you look up to and why?
My major
influence was Plantu, France’s most famous cartoonist.
He was actually the first to be really considered
seriously, as a true political analyst, using cartooning
instead of writing. And his drawings were not just
ordinary sketches, but really well crafted and elaborate
compositions. To me, that was the way to go.
Then I
discovered other French cartoonists, such as Willem,
Cabu, Wiaz, Loup, etc.
And the
English ones: Searle, Steadman, Gary, and many more. But
I sort of sticked to the “Clear Line” French ones. Being
brought up with the Bandes Dessinées, we learn very
early on about the graphical efficiency of the “Clear
Line”, a term invented by Hergé to define his work on
Tintin.
To me,
political cartoons are graphic metaphors that speak
directly to the subconscious. Therefore, the more
beautiful they are to watch, the more efficient they’ll
be to hit the target, which isn’t the intellect, but the
subconscious.
It’s a
usual statement to say that political cartoons are only
about the idea and that they don’t have to be well done
artistically speaking. I couldn’t disagree more.
Q: You
are mostly published in Europe, but live in Australia.
Since there is a large time-zone difference, how do you
deal with talking to editors and deadlines? How often do
you have to travel to France to meet with editors?
I travel
about once a year. As for the day-to-day work, it isn’t
that difficult, because I’m ahead of them, so when they
arrive at work, I’ve already been working, drawing and
reading for 10 hours. The only thing is I work until 2
or 3 AM every night. But I have a nap in the morning,
since it’s the middle of the night in Brussels!!
Then I go
running or swimming, then I have lunch with my wife and
kids, and after all that I start working, at about 1 PM,
until 2 or 3 AM.
As for
talking to editors, I almost never do. Journalists,
especially editors, don’t have time to chat around, and
neither do I. So we do it via Email mostly. But I’ve
known these people for many years now, so I don’t have
to fuss around with them. They’ve agreed to the fact I’m
a virtual person. I will have to adjust when I get back
home, because for me, Brussels has also become virtual
over the years. So it’s a bit like returning to ‘Second
Life’, finding out it is real.
It’s a
bit different with my daily Finance Newspaper, L’Echo:
they hired me in 2008, when I was already in Australia.
I only met them ten months later. So for ten months, I
worked on a daily basis with people I had never met.
Q:
Also, on that subject, how do you keep up to date with
French and European politics to be able to draw your
political cartoons?
Thanks to
a recent invention called the Internet. I haven’t read a
single daily printed newspaper in five years.
Q: Can
you describe your involvement in “Cartooning for Peace”
to us?
Well,
Plantu called me once to join in, since they were
putting together a big event in Wellington, and I lived
close-by. My international pedigree helps too, since I
speak two languages. And Cartooning for Peace is about
crossing borders, which is the corner stone of my work,
as well as the fight against nationalism.
Q:
Your latest “Bande Dessinee” (Graphic Novel), “Maudit
Mardi!” (Cursed Tuesday!) is lined-up to be published by
Sandwave. Can you describe the Sandwave publishing
formula?
It’s a
crowd-funding publisher, the first ever in the business.
People actually invest on a project to finance it. Once
it has reached its objective (€55.000), it goes into
production. “Investors” will get a free copy prior to
the release, will have access to the making process
during production, and will eventually make money from
their investment if the book proves successful. If the
project doesn’t reach the €55.000, it is binned.
It is
still unfortunately restricted to the French-speaking
world, because their penny hasn’t dropped yet that
graphic novelling needs to conquer the world, outside
its French-speaking borders.
I’ve only
done five pages out of eighty. If investors finance it,
it will come out in 2012.
Q: I
believe “Maudit Mardi!” is your first “Bande Dessinee”
where you had full control of both the text and the
drawings. Was finalizing the idea and script harder than
the drawings?
No, I
also had full control on my previous book, “Neuf Mois”,
which was about fatherhood.
Actually, writing is as fun as drawing, even sometimes
more interesting. Usually, an idea brews and stirs in my
mind for a couple of years, a bit like wine in the
cellar. Then it pops out one day and I write the first
draft in about a week or so, working on it almost 24/7,
only interrupted by my 15 cartoons a week, a bit of
sleep and my wife and two young children…
J.
Then I put it aside for a couple of weeks and write the
second version. After that, I start drawing. But by the
time I’ve actually finished the book (18 months), I’ll
only keep 30 % of the original script, since images
bring ideas, those bringing new images, and so on. It’s
a constant work-in-progress thing, and I love it.
It
usually starts with a pitch. In that case, it’s about a
man who finds out which day of the week he’s going to
die: a Tuesday. But Which one? The next? The one after?
Or in 50 years? He doesn’t know. Therefore, six days a
week, he knows he’s invincible.
I’m
totally schizophrenic, artistically speaking, if you
compare my work as a political cartoonist with the
graphic novelling: techniques used are different in
every aspect. But, as I usually say, I do political
cartoons to connect with the world, and graphic
novelling to disconnect from it.
Q:
Have you published cartoons in Australia?
No. That
was my goal when I moved here, but I never had the time
to read enough about Australian politics to be relevant,
and then to knock on doors for publication. I publish
600 cartoons a year in Belgium, I couldn’t fit any more.
Q: Are
you still drawing in a “traditional” way or have you
switched to digital?
Both.
Since I was artistically brought up in the Hergé
tradition, half of my work is done like in the old days:
the pencil drawing is done on paper, very precisely,
then I ink it on another piece of paper, using a light
table. After that, I scan the inked cartoon. The rest,
colouring, lettering, visual effects – and sending! – is
done on the computer.
I’m
really keen on technology and computers, but they’re
only tools. A great one, but a tool anyhow, just like a
brush or a pencil.
Q:
Having lived in Australia for 5 years now, do you see
“Graphic Novels” having a future in Australia?
Like I
said before, it could, but it needs a lot of work, first
to make the public accept that it isn’t a debilitating
nerdy thing for underground dropouts or teenage dummies.
It needs
to be taught in schools. Had I stayed in Australia, I
was very close to setting a course with COFA, but who
knows ? I have Australian citizenship now (well, I will
officially in two months), so I might come back, this
time to Sydney, in a couple of years…
In
Belgium, it’s an art form, which is considered as
important as cinema, music or literature. We get invited
in all the major media shows. When you say you’re a
graphic novelist, people ask you: “What sort of graphic
novel do you do?”. In Australia, their first question
is: “What are graphic novels?” People in
French-speaking Europe take for granted the fact that
the Bandes Dessinées are part of the cultural
background. They should live in an English-speaking
country for a few years to actually understand what a
real “cultural gap” is. I’ve been preaching that for
years, but they still don’t get it. But they are
overproducing on their own market and are all
struggling. If they keep on ignoring the rest of the
world, they’ll be dead meat in ten years, especially
with the rise of self-publication, thanks to the Web.
What happened to music editors with the I-Pod will
happen to graphic novel publishers for sure, once Steve
Jobs invents a device that will enable each one of us to
buy a book online, and print it like a real book at
home. The technology already exists in a way, on I-Photo
for instance, but it is still complicated and expensive.
But it’s only a matter of years, I’m sure. That is why I
wanted to be part of Sandawe (www.sandawe.com),
which is the first step toward self-publication.
Q: You
have a website in both French and English, do you
maintain it yourself?
Yes, but
with the help of my wife and mother-in-law for
translations, since French is my main language. I
apologise for not updating the English version enough,
but 95 % of the people who log on to the website are
Belgian of French. The French version is updated every
Thursday. As for technical maintenance, I don’t do it. I
have a Webmaster who lives in Belgium, who does it for
me. I send him the content, then he puts it on the
website!
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nicolasvadot.com
