Youth is so central in Riad Sattouf's works that the world of adults could seem to bore him. “ No way. But childhood is the king subject », replies the creator of The Arab of the futureof the Esther's notebooks and the movie The Beautiful Kidsin “dna”, the INA show. Because, for him, “ middle school and high school are a kind of first rehearsal of life “. And he doesn't only have good memories. Feeling bad about himself, he thought that everyone was much prettier than him. “ But in fact when I look at the photos of people today, I realize that everyone was ugly “. Same impression regarding the unattractive physique of the teenagers interviewed for a TF1 report from 1990.
It is perhaps a little because of his youthful complexes that he created the character of Pascal Brutal in the 2000s. Because if he makes fun of this anti-him, bloated with muscles as much as of prejudices, he also lives through his character a life that he would not have ” never been able to touch “. Riad Sattouf admits to being “ fascinated by the impact on reality of tall and beautiful people » : « At the same time, I made fun of this type of guy and at the same time it made me fantasize. The idea of walking into a nightclub and arousing purely sexual interest through an extremely powerful and tall physique is something I've never experienced so at the time I loved playing with this that idea ».
Long before Pascal Brutal and the Arab of the Future, his bestseller, it was on television, on “Récré A2”, that Riad Sattouf learned to draw. He laughs heartily when we immerse him in this Proust madeleine. And thinks back with nostalgia to the cartoons “ hyper gores » of the “Club Dorothée” as Ken the survivor. A subject much more interesting according to him than “ the completely useless and stupid cartoons that children watch on the platforms “. Among his inspirations, we also find Hergé, whose way of creating he imitated by beginning to imagine his projects with “ comics entirely in small sketches “. Or even Claire Bretécher whom he knew when he was a young designer.
