«Isabelle Samain, Isabelle Samain, Isabelle Samain…its name this is a love song with a metric perfect», is enraptured the young hero of It is today that I love you . The adaptation of the novel by François Morel by Pascal Rabaté, plunges the reader into the memory of the first emotions of love. With a special feature. The protagonist has no name, it is «we the people».

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Isabelle Samain is the woman of his heart. A name that sounds like a jingle that the teenager repeated, envi, and behind which looms the love of all the boys his age. Stories which intertwine shyness, hope, awkwardness, déconfitures, desire or obsession of sexuality. A narrative that is tender, poetic, sprinkled with humor and skillfully relayed by the graphics delicate, Pascal Rabaté.

LE FIGARO – It is today that I love you is first of all a novel released last march. Why are you leaning on love teenage girls?

FRANÇOIS MOREL – Martine Laval, who works in the editions of the Ringer, asked me to his collection «What life means to me», after a book by Jack London about his report writing, how it has transformed her life. I am told that the teenage years could be the pivotal moment that determines the future of a man. You can become a brave or a dirty type according to the meetings that are done during this period, this is the time where we can choose a little his way. In particular, in its relationship with others and especially girls.

The young boy that you put in the scene speaks of the whole of humanity from things extremely intimate. Where does this desire for universality?

I felt like this shift. I fully appreciate the work of Sempé where there is always a ratio of different scale, like a small figure all alone in front of the sea who shouts «down». I am also referred to a phrase of Alexandre Vialatte: man is an animal hat soft, which waits for the bus at the corner of the rue de la Glacière and the boulevard Arago. I have done the opposite, rather than from the particular to the general, I left the general to go to the particular.

This story is a bit the autobiography of all men confronted with the first emotions of not necessarily extraordinary, but which satisfy the existence. And then this is the time where one wonders if one will not be the only man on Earth to be a virgin, and to remain permanently. It is complicated the first emotions. We are looking for. And at the same time, the face of despair-the depths, the teenager will be better as soon as her mother prepares his favourite dish. It is a little bit the Nicholas who discovers sexuality. Sempé and Goscinny are actually a major reference of this story.

That think in retrospect the mature man?

I’m a little bit like my character that at the end of the novel weaves friendship with isabelle Samain as we can imagine to transform into a love relationship. Then, he sees his worries disappear with the word and the respect of the other. It grows thanks to its openness to the other.

With the comic, you have given a face to «all these men». How did you envision this adaptation with Pascal Rabaté?

It is Pascal who has done everything. A priori, I didn’t see this story very adaptable, with the idea of men in general, and that side almost the conference on love. But Pascal was inspired right away and learned very quickly how to do it, while I’ve never really talked about it in a theoretical way. I found his adaptation to be very successful, especially when it draws from the same box the character which unfolds with different colors. This expresses well the fact that they are «men» and that it is not yet quite finished, together. He is going to seek, in sum.

The protagonist of «It is today that I love you» duplicated The Bullring BD/ François Morel/ Pascal Rabaté

Are you nostalgic for this period?

I wear a look more tender and amused as melancholy about this time. I wouldn’t really want to relive those emotions. Frankly, I am not nostalgic and pullovers in acrylic door my character, I screw better with my little Bompard.

It is today that I love you , François Morel, and Pascal Rabaté, editions Les Arènes BD, 18 euros.

On the occasion of the release of the album, the Bullring, BD and the library Bubble are organising a musical show and drawn with the authors at the Palais des Congrès du Mans, 15 February at 19: 30. Free show registration.

SERVICE: check out the adaptation of the novel of Morel by Rabaté on izneo