Frédéric Pajak smuggles comics. His books cross the border between texts and drawings, between his life and those of writers and artists whose wild, recalcitrant and unsociable energy determines existence, what is born from it and nourishes it: creation. We pass from one to the other by paths of lines, of words, of mule tracks. These paths are narrow gates: winding, black and white, full of detours. They are also sober, clear and precise: the ferryman does not make speeches. He knows every shrub, every stone, every crevice of the landscape that he tells, that he shows, through which he guides us. This is how you avoid customs officers and the beaten track. And that’s how we enchant: through a visual, laconic and obstinate journey through the terrain. This journey probably comes from childhood. Frédéric Pajak is like kids who draw images, silhouettes, things, characters on the page, alongside what they read. They come from the imagination provoked by the story, without illustrating it: the childhood of the story is the childhood of art. And the one who brings us back is a 7-year-old smuggler, 69, anarchist and silent.
“Clamors, grunts, songs”
He often spoke about the relationships between texts and drawings. Uncertain Manifesto 10, published today, summarizes his thoughts on this fertile and difficult couple, where each is not the gen
