"I didn't see the success of Fabcaro's 'Zaï zaï zaï' coming," by Gilles Rochier
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Fabcaro's cult classic, nonsensical comic strip about a man on the run after forgetting his store loyalty card, is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a joyfully expanded version. His friend, comic book artist Gilles Rochier, has paid a fitting tribute to the story.
This article is an op-ed, written by an author outside the newspaper and whose point of view does not reflect the editorial staff's views.
We've heard the little tune of "Zaï zaï zaï zaï" everywhere: on stage, including an adaptation with Blanche Gardin and Adèle Haenel, in a "live reading" led by the creators of "Message à caractère informatif" Nicolas & Bruno, or in cinema with Jean-Paul Rouve, and, behind the camera, François Desagnat. Almost enough to forget the original source. The cult album by Fabcaro follows the escape of a comic book author after he forgets his supermarket loyalty card. A great burlesque, which doesn't prevent the satire of a society that excludes at every turn. To mark the tenth anniversary of its publication, 6 Pieds sous terre editions are offering a joyfully expanded version of their bestseller. Interspersed throughout the story are pages written by accomplices (Guillaume Bouzard, Emilie Plateau, etc.) or the author's emails dating back to the beginning of the process, which are worth their weight in peanuts: "As a provisional working title, I'm working on 'Life is a one-eyed bitch under an October sky.'" And then there are also some lovely tribute texts, like that of Gilles Rochier, author of "TMLP. Ta mère la pute" (6 Pieds sous terre, 2011, winner of the Angoulême Festival Revelation Prize in 2012) or "la Petite Couronne" (2017), a long-time accomplice of Fabcaro. But how long already? Amandine Schmitt
“Zaï zaï zaï zaï”, special edition, collective, 6 feet under, 104 p., 28 euros.
No matter how I turn the thing over and over, searching deep into my memories or my hard drives, I have absolutely no memory of the first time I saw Fabcaro...
Maybe, I mean maybe it is possible for a first meeting at the International Festival of Black Novels in Frontignan which exhibited the plates of one of his first books, "La Bredoute"... but every sensible author who participated in this festival knows very well that it is impossible to remember something that would have happened there given the dynamics of the event based on oysters, mussels and Muscat... Good heavens, it is not possible not to remember but at the same time it is not abnormal either, Fabrice has always cultivated discretion... Without noise he works, without noise he takes out books and without noise he comes to sign them for us and even if it was noisy for the design, inside him, we will not know. He is discreet and he will not come to bother you with his problems. At home we say "well-bred", others say "nice"... that's true too, that's why Fabcaro is nice... Like you can ask him for an autograph on the station platform while his train arrives to go home after a looooong festival, exhausted... he will have drawn his character running with a leek about 2,000 times, he won't refuse... he will take out his fine-tipped felt-tip pen and will apply himself to giving you a nice autograph then he will apologize for the quality of his drawing... he will smile, thank you while his train leaves without him... the last train of the day.
He'll tell you it's okay, it happens, it's not your fault. He'll go get a discreet hotel room, and write the new script for the next "Asterix" that night, on his old computer that's only held together by tape.
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A quick service message—and an informative one—don't try it with me, it would amount to a passenger incident. In short, it doesn't help me. Where and when I saw Fabcaro the first time, it's all mysterious, a bit like him actually... Hmm, not mysterious, I'm wrong, it's not that, he's not mysterious, it's as if he's hiding something... it's not that, Fabrice if you don't ask him, he doesn't say... at the table with him where there are people where they talk, they laugh, you see him... he doesn't speak, just, you see his eyes... a slight optical gesticulation which corresponds to a recording of the discussion in his head, you feel that he is taking it all in and that it will all end in the absurd in his staging, in a story, a book. But if during this dinner he found you a little below, sad, worried... you will receive a text from him the next day asking you if you are okay. I love his presence, the lightness of his company, nothing is complicated, ever, it took us a while to listen to each other and tell each other about our way of writing or constructing a story, he is always surprised that I write such dark books when I am funny… I think he finally understood that I bawl because I am scared to death. I had to get back in touch more than once to find out how he worked, he finally let me know that he “improvises all the time” wow the guy improvises… he who sweats the little guy who has no confidence, who doesn’t really know what’s going on, the guy he goes there in tap shoes on the script, as long as it’s funny I move forward, crazy. Not so much… he found his score, his rhythm, his way, his tempo, his writing. And he shapes any subject and emotion with that, insulting our contemporary with this absurdity making it less painful. But it wasn't a meteorite that fell in the Bédarieux mountains that gave him this power overnight, it's that the guy has been working hard for a while, a good long time that he has been scratching paper, before it shines for him he worked hard, he erased and redid, with the self-denial of the comic book author who continues to make books even though it works.
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Fabcaro's review : the absurd with "the determination of a samurai"
