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Date/Time
Date(s) - 08/02/2019
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Location
Alliance Française du Bengale

Categories


 Programme

Author Joseph Safieddine in conversation with illustrator Thomas Cadène

About the authors

  • Joseph Safieddine isn’t the same person as Gabriel El Chatawi, the hero of his last album, but he could be. Born in France to a Franco-Lebanese family, and dividing his life between Paris, and Beirut and Tyre in Lebanon, the graphic novel “Yallah Bye” (Le Lombard 2015, Europe Comics 2017) very much represents his own story. Lebanon had already inspired the author to create two other albums previously: “Les Lumières de Tyr” with Xavier Jimenez (Steinkis, 2012) and “Je n’ai jamais connu la guerre” with Maud Begon (Casterman, 2013). But comics have been the author’s preferred means of expression for much longer still: starting with “Que j’ai été” (Les Enfants Rouges) as scriptwriter in 2010, he then published “Le Monstre” (Manolosanctis, 2010) with Tom, followed by “Paco” with Zaffiro and James Kaye, and “L’Homme sans Rêve” with Olivier Bonhomme (Manolosanctis, 2011), before finally offering his talents as a writer to the collective work “Les autres gens” (Dupuis). The publication of Yallah Bye certainly marks an important new step in his artistic career.
  • Thomas Cadène, born in 1976, seems to have led dozens of lives from a master’s degree in law to illustration, via marketing luxury products or waiter at a café. Finally he decided to become an illustrator, launching this career plan by working for wedding magazines. Around this time, he began to surf on the Café Salé internet forum, through which he met some of the cartoonists he would later work with as a writer, as well as Sebastien Vassant, with whom he organized The Smallest and Most Informal Comic Book Festival. He then began work on an ambitious, multifaceted project, mirroring his own life: over the course of two and a half years, he wrote, relentlessly, Les autres gens (Dupuis) – the first “bédénovella” made for the internet. This adventure gave him the opportunity to work with over a hundred illustrators, some of which would go on to become collaborators on other future projects, such as Joseph Falzon, Christophe Gaultier, and Grégory Mardon. Most recently, alongside Falzon, he has created the graphic novel sensation Alt-Life