????????The comic strip “Racines” by Réunionnaise Lou Lubie wins the franceinfo prize for topical comics

Among the prizes awarded by franceinfo as part of comics month, the current comic strip prize was awarded to Reunion Islander Lou Lubie for his album Roots which tells of the struggles of a young girl and then a young woman with her hair! The opportunity to listen to the podcast again The Ear is bold which was dedicated to him!

“I don’t like drawing!” This confession of Lou Lubie would itself act as a teaser for the podcast The Ear is boldan exercise to which she very willingly agrees to comply. Indeed, the author of the comic Roots takes pleasure in talking about his latest work with disconcerting ease, apparently more at ease with words than with images.

In fact, at the start of her young career, the one who dreamed of being a novelist only took up drawing to illustrate her own scenarios. One thing led to another, she acquired a nice pencil stroke, capable of brilliantly tackling the thick opus Rootsas she tells it, among other confidences, to The Ear is bold:

This eleventh album is loaded with symbols for Lou Lubie, especially since the story told – that of Rose, from her childhood to adulthood, struggling and in crisis with her frizzy hair – is a little (a lot? ) her own hair story.

“Rootsit’s my comfort zone”, she admits. It is in fact the fourth album that she has produced, which mixes all genres in this way: both quasi-journalistic investigation and documentary (you will know everything about straightening, braiding, straightening…), diary (Rose’s entire life and journey is told, from Reunion to France), practical guide (the different types of hair, care, the salons of hairstyles…), history book (the settlement of Reunion Island, slavery)…

Lou Lubie likes to use all these items at the same time and sees herself without any problem as a popularizer for readers put off by books that are sometimes too scientific or historical.

Hence a clever comic book with enough springs and twists to keep the reader in suspense who experiences the hair troubles of its heroine like a real obstacle course. Since her childhood, the young Rose, a Reunion Islander with white skin but having inherited frizzy hair, has had difficulty seeing others stare at her unmanageable hair. From this pain, the most intimate framework of Roots (and undoubtedly the most successful passages of the album).

Roots also traces the history of this hair which since slavery has been bullied, discredited, hated, destroyed… Throughout Rose’s path towards acceptance of herself and her origins, Lou Lubie never stops to show how naturally frizzy hair has been criticized to better establish the domination of one part of humanity over the other. Domination of the West over the rest of the world, to the point of imposing its own beauty criteria everywhere as the only possible path.…

Hence the tortures of straightening and straightening that thousands of black women have imposed on themselves to look like models, far from being their image.
Through Rootsit is still a message of hope that Lou Lubie addresses to his readers since [ “spoiler” alerte ! ] Rose, after many hair adventures, will find the strength to face herself and accept all the heritage of her Creole lineage…

Listen to the screenwriter (and despite everything a designer!) talk about her job and her Reunion, a land of comics, to which she pays homage. Dive into the heart of Rootshighly recommended comic (and beautiful graphic object with its very beautiful cover) in which you will find yourself – perhaps – and from which you will learn – for sure – that hair, like skin color, has its own story to tell.

Meet the designer and screenwriter from Reunion Lou Lubie in The Ear is boldit’s HERE !

Or here:

“Racines”, written and drawn by Lou Lubie, is a comic book album published by Delcourt.
Lou Lubie also wrote the screenplay for “Eurydice” (drawings by Solen Guivre – Delcourt editions))