“I was really sad when I heard the news this morning. I knew she wasn't forever, but she was still so active. She came to Angoulême, she had school meetings, she had an Insta account, certainly run by her granddaughter but still…
A family resemblance
I, like everyone, knew her in “I like to read”. And like everyone else, I only read “Tom-Tom and Nana” in “J'aime Lire”, let's face it, you have to admit! As a child, I remember what I found great was that it was small. Like a reassuring closed door, compared to all the other comics where it traveled the world on incredible adventures. At the Dubouchons, it happened between the parents' restaurant, the children's bedroom and eventually the way to school and that's it! Bernadette Després' drawing made her world very familiar to us. We could smell the kitchen, there was something super normal, like a real family in a real house with real people. The customers of the restaurant had very credible, very believable looks, they were not preened. Just like the house where we felt there was a mess, there was life.
We could smell the kitchen, there was something super normal, like a real family in a real house with real people
His line, which was never in a straight line, was filled with lots of little details that soothed me. And what I loved above all was this duality between these children who only did stupid things, sometimes very elaborate, and these parents who were so normal, that is to say drunk at having the children in their hands, who yell at them and tell them to go to their room, but who love them dearly! I remember a story where children made a machine to read people's hearts. They tested it on the parents, asking them lots of questions and depending on the answers, a small cursor would go towards the heart. And when asked about loving their children, the arrow literally exploded because they loved them. We weren't necessarily aware of this unconditional love while reading, but it was something extremely reassuring. When we are children and our parents scold us, we think that we are really annoying them, that they are really fed up with us. But here it was quite the opposite. The parents didn't care about the kids' bullshit, because they loved them more than anything.
When I think about it, I realize that I completely forgot about “Tom-Tom and Nana” for years. It's not a comic book that is often highlighted and held up as a reference. And it was while working in comics that I finally had this reminiscence. I remembered that the comic strip I read the most as a child was not “Tintin” or “Asterix”, but rather “Tom-Tom and Nana”. If you count the number of hours and the number of pages, it wins hands down! And speaking with people born between, roughly, 1975 and 1990, there is no match, we have all been fed this comic. This is why we love him and why so many people pay tribute to him today. »
Pénélope Bagieu's tribute to Bernadette Després.
