Pénélope Bagieu came over for a snack with Nadia Daam.
For this first episode of 2026 of the À la Mère de Famille podcast, Déborah and Steve welcome Pénélope Bagieu on the occasion of the release of her brand new comic book "La nuit retrouvée". She is accompanied by her guest Nadia Daam to share a delicious snack. Between creative confidences, bursts of laughter and well-timed digressions, the author and the journalist discuss their complicity, their common obsessions, their passion, but also what it means to tell stories today, in images, in words and in taking a stand.
They take us behind the scenes of a new book, talk about friendship, work, pop culture and everything that nourishes their view of the world, with humor, intelligence and a lot of spontaneity. A generous, lively and delightful episode to start the year off right.
Enjoy listening🎧
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Deezer and Amazon Music
Pénélope Bagieu
A joyful mischief inhabits all her work. She brings a round and childlike line to life, makes soft and captivating colors throb, to take her readers into an imaginative world open to everyone, regardless of gender, age, or taste! Pénélope Bagieu, comic book artist and author, who also illustrated our Advent calendar in 2021, unfolds from one panel to another a delicate visual gourmandise with no shortage of strong convictions. An engaged woman, she wonderfully combines entertainment and reflection, her creations carry strong messages accessible to all. In the fall of 2025, she publishes La nuit retrouvée with the author Lola Lafon, a graphic novel praised by critics.
Nadia Daam
Journalist and essayist, Nadia Daam has worked in various newsrooms. Serving several media outlets and formats, in the press, on the radio, on TV, her works adorn certain shelves in bookstores. The author has always been drawn, relentlessly, for now almost 20 years and the publication of her first book, Mauvaises mères : La vérité sur le premier bébé, by the same subjects: the battles to fight as a woman and the place to defend, the clichés about femininity, about motherhood, about couples. What links her to Pénélope Bagieu? Her work of deconstruction is constantly accompanied by a unique perspective not devoid of humor. Since September 2025, she hosts a column on the XXL version of the iconic show Les Maternelles broadcast on France 4 and France 5.
Transcript
Déborah Pham — So, who are we welcoming today?
Steve Dolfi — Today, we welcome Pénélope Bagieu, who had illustrated one of our Advent calendars a few years ago.
Déborah Pham — Yes, and who also had the blog Ma vie est tout à fait fascinante.
Steve Dolfi — Yes, who wrote Les Culottées… Well, she’s a great comic book author.
Déborah Pham — Great.
Steve Dolfi — And she comes with Nadia Daam.
Déborah Pham — Journalist, writer. Great. Well, I’ll leave you to do the shopping with them and I’ll wait for you upstairs.
Steve Dolfi — Sounds good.
Steve Dolfi — Hi!
Pénélope Bagieu — Hello!
Steve Dolfi — Welcome to À la Mère de Famille.
Pénélope Bagieu — Thank you.
Nadia Daam — Thank you for having us.
Steve Dolfi — Pénélope, I know you know the store. But you Nadia, do you know it?
Nadia Daam — No, I’ve never come.
Steve Dolfi — So, I’m going to give you a little basket. You have to fill it.
Nadia Daam — You have to fill it?
Steve Dolfi — You have to fill it to be able to snack later, upstairs.
Pénélope Bagieu — Sky is the limit, we take everything?
Steve Dolfi — Sky is the limit, broadly. I’ll give you a few little tips if you want.
Pénélope Bagieu — OK.
Steve Dolfi — The Toucans, for example: huge craze. The Rocher praline: huge craze.
Nadia Daam — Me, I love that kind of stuff.
Steve Dolfi — Come, I’ll give you some Palets d’amandes.
Nadia Daam — Am I disqualified if I take jams?
Steve Dolfi — No! We’ll go buy some bread, do you want to make tartines?
Nadia Daam — No, no, no!
Steve Dolfi — With your hands, like a dirty girl.
Nadia Daam — Everything that is a vine-ripened call to me very strongly.
Steve Dolfi — Do you know that there are marrons glacés?
Nadia Daam — Yes!
Steve Dolfi — Do you know that we are part of the best marrons glacés in the world?
Nadia Daam — Is that true? Oh my!
Steve Dolfi — On the other hand, you don’t know the Craques. The Craques, it’s a real nasty thing because you’re going to taste them for the first time…
Nadia Daam — And after…
Pénélope Bagieu — It really lives up to its name.
Steve Dolfi — We didn’t choose it by chance.
Pénélope Bagieu — And the marshmallows? We didn’t take any marshmallows?
Nadia Daam — Me, I want the little bears!
Steve Dolfi — The Coquin marshmallows, that’s for sure.
Pénélope Bagieu — I want the Louloutres.
Steve Dolfi — I think we’re good.
Pénélope Bagieu — Is it good?
Steve Dolfi — Yes. Now the goal is to stack them without dropping the chocolates.
Nadia Daam — Because if we lose one, we can't eat it anymore?
Steve Dolfi — If you lose one, you're disqualified.
Nadia Daam — Oh wow!
Déborah Pham — Hello everyone and welcome to this new episode of L’Heure du Goûter. Hello Steve, hello Nadia and hello Pénélope.
Pénélope Bagieu & Nadia Daam — Hello!
Déborah Pham — It's so great to have you at the table with full baskets. But not everything is on the table, mind you. Baskets full of goodies!
What did you find? Was it Steve who gave you a little consulting in the shop?
Nadia Daam — A little consulting and a lot of generosity overflowing from the basket, because we were taking less.
Steve Dolfi — "There's a little more, I'll put it in anyway."
Déborah Pham — That's really his style. Totally his style.
But what does it feel like to find yourself in the shop and be able to take whatever you want?
Pénélope Bagieu — It's a childhood dream.
Nadia Daam — Yes. Having the candy and chocolate shop at your disposal…
Déborah Pham — What does it make you think of?
Pénélope Bagieu — There's a little Charlie and the Chocolate Factory side to it. It's really the childhood dream where you say to yourself: "I can take whatever I want", without having your mother behind you to tell you that it's not good for your teeth.
It's great.
Nadia Daam — We want to, but we don't dare.
Steve Dolfi — What was funny was that I kind of forced your hand.
Pénélope Bagieu — Good thing you do it.
Nadia Daam — Yes, because it's so beautiful. And then politeness stops us a little.
Pénélope Bagieu — We were taking the small boxes when there were large ones.
Steve Dolfi — But yes! The family size, you have to go for it.
Déborah Pham — What did you bring us back?
Pénélope Bagieu — Some Louloutres in front of me, because they're beautiful and the illustrations by Lisa on the box are magnificent.
Déborah Pham — It's true.
Nadia Daam — And some white chocolate pralines. Because, as I was telling Steve, I am really the opposite of a chocolate purist: I love white chocolate.
Déborah Pham — Ah! Team white chocolate, that's a first, I think.
Steve Dolfi — They say it's for people who don't really like chocolate.
Nadia Daam — But I love chocolate! It's something else, it's another pleasure.
And then it's a bit classist, I think, to always say: "Oh no, white chocolate is rubbish."
Aren't we tired of people saying you have to eat dark chocolate, blue meat and drink Bordeaux?
I totally own it: I love white chocolate.
Déborah Pham — So some Craques, some Louloutres, some pralines…
Nadia Daam — And some old-fashioned orange creams.
Déborah Pham — Pénélope, where did you grow up?
Pénélope Bagieu — I grew up in Paris, but my family is originally from Corsica and the Basque Country.
Déborah Pham — Ah, not bad!
Steve Dolfi — Nice pedigree. We won't bother it.
Déborah Pham — I remember because you were talking about it on your blog Ma vie est tout à fait fascinante. That's a bit how you started to become known on the Internet.
I remember it very well because I was at university when I was reading your blog. Then there was the edition that followed. It was a kind of illustrated diary.
Pénélope Bagieu — Yes, you could say that.
Déborah Pham — And Nadia, how do you two know each other?
Nadia Daam — We were asked the question not long ago and we didn't know what to answer.
I was a reader of Pénélope's blog and her Twitter account. And vice versa, I think Pénélope was reading my articles.
We were regularly sending each other messages until we ended up going on a date, I guess.
Déborah Pham — And when was that? Can we place it in space-time?
Nadia Daam — Me, I always place things in relation to my daughter's age.
Pénélope Bagieu — She was born.
Nadia Daam — Before or after Jesus Christ, there. She must have been three years old, so it was about fifteen years ago.
Pénélope Bagieu — Yes, something like that.
Nadia Daam — What's certain is that it happened over a glass of wine.
Pénélope Bagieu — Probably.
Déborah Pham — What brought you together?
Pénélope Bagieu — Wine.
Nadia Daam — Wine.
Déborah Pham — But before the glass!
Nadia Daam — Feminism?
Pénélope Bagieu — Feminism and humor.
Nadia Daam — Obviously.
Déborah Pham — So you met via Twitter, through tweets.
Pénélope Bagieu — I think so.
Steve Dolfi — You have the right to eat while talking.
Pénélope Bagieu — Is it recommended?
Steve Dolfi — Yes. But not both at the same time, otherwise we'll have a problem.
Déborah Pham — And especially not while reading the praline joke.
On the other hand, I'd love for you to read it to us.
Pénélope Bagieu — "What's a three-humped camel?"
Nadia Daam — A three-humped camel… Is there a connection with chocolate?
Steve Dolfi — Absolutely none.
Nadia Daam — A camel that bumped into something?
Steve Dolfi — It was a camel that bumped into something, indeed.
Déborah Pham — It’s very beautiful.
Steve Dolfi — I invite you not to look too far.
Déborah Pham — I should point out that the jokes are also in-house.
Steve Dolfi — Sometimes, it’s the children.
Déborah Pham — We’ll say it’s collegiate.
Steve Dolfi — We’re actually in the process of changing the jokes, so everyone can send us some.
Nadia Daam — Oh yeah?
Déborah Pham — Pénélope, how would you introduce Nadia to people who don’t know her yet?
Nadia Daam — Terrible.
Déborah Pham — Good luck.
Pénélope Bagieu — I’d say she’s a novelist, but also a journalist, screenwriter… She does a lot of things: films, comics… And she plays with words.
Nadia is releasing a comic book next year.
Déborah Pham — Oh really? With whom?
Nadia Daam — Early 2026. It’s an adaptation of a book I wrote two years ago, La Gosse. The comic book adaptation is being done by an artist I adore.
Déborah Pham — So cool, congratulations.
Pénélope Bagieu — It’s magnificent.
Déborah Pham — And La Gosse is also a book about transmission.
Nadia Daam — Exactly. That’s really the main theme.
And about family, especially. It raises the question of what a family is. How many people does it take to become a family? Is a mother and her daughter a family?
The answer is yes.
Pénélope Bagieu — You’re already giving away the answer.
Déborah Pham — We know the punchline!
Nadia Daam — There, you have the punchline.
Déborah Pham — Do you give each other a lot of books?
Pénélope Bagieu — Yes.
Nadia Daam — We did it yesterday, by the way, because it was her birthday.
Déborah Pham — What did you give her?
Pénélope Bagieu — Two comic books I found extraordinary.
I love giving comic books because people buy them less spontaneously. And since I read a lot of them, I can make my selections and say: “OK, these are really my two bangers of the year.”
One tells the story of two sisters in the south of France. It’s an immersion into their real lives and you feel like their third sister.
It’s incredible. You’re going to cry so much.
Nadia Daam — Wonderful, thank you!
Pénélope Bagieu — And the other tells the story of a young boy’s youth in a very harsh rural environment in the 1970s. He feels that another world exists but that he is not part of it.
He lives in a world of extremely brutal masculinity and dreams of being able to escape it.
The artwork is sublime.
Déborah Pham — I’ll have to ask you for the titles again at the end of the show.
Pénélope Bagieu — If you want, I can recommend a lot more. I love recommending comic books.
Déborah Pham — I love it.
It’s funny that you say: “You’re going to cry.” It has happened to me before to cry while reading a comic book and I was almost surprised that it was possible.
Pénélope Bagieu — Even with a book, you don’t necessarily imagine that tears can come as easily as in front of a movie.
In a movie, emotion comes to you with the music, the editing…
When it happens while reading a book or a comic book, I find that you are almost even more affected.
It’s even deeper.
Déborah Pham — Can comic books give you this kind of emotion?
Pénélope Bagieu — Reading in general, and comic books in particular, yes.
It’s funny because we still have this somewhat old and false idea that comic books are mainly for laughing.
Obviously, there are infinitely funny comic books. But there are also comic books that tell crazy stories, with crazy emotion. There are political comic books… They can really get to you.
Déborah Pham — I feel like the field has evolved enormously.
When I discovered what you were doing, it was the era of comic book blogs, Frantico and all that stuff. People were telling their lives on the internet and it was almost a new form of comic book.
Today, I feel like it’s exploding.
How have you seen the sector evolve since you started?
Pénélope Bagieu — I think that collectively, female authors have greatly contributed to evolving it simply by insisting on the fact that we existed.
When I started, people were constantly saying: “There are very few women in comic books.”
And it was already false.
They were more invisible than non-existent.
So we became more and more visible, even though we were probably always about the same number.
And that allowed young girls who wanted to do comic books to be able to project themselves and say: “Oh yes, it exists. There are some.”
It’s still important because you can hardly want to become something you’ve never seen.
Yes, it has become more feminized and has also opened up to very different stories.
But the big revolution had already started in the 90s.
At that time, we broke out of the classic 48-page album, hardcover, in color, with a hero and his adventures.
Publishing houses like L’Association started publishing autobiography, longer formats, black and white, subjects that were not at all intended for children.
A comic book like Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, at the time, it was really crazy to imagine telling that in comic book form.
It contributed to making comic books a respectable cultural object for adults, and no longer just something you give to children.
It allowed people to say: “I have this story to tell. Why not in a comic book?”
It’s not necessarily a series of strips with a joke at the end.
Déborah Pham — How could we have had both extremes to this extent: comic books considered something for children and, on the other hand, almost like something for connoisseurs?
Pénélope Bagieu — For years, we considered that comic books were given to little boys.
And that girls, on the other hand, received illustrated books.
Naturally, you create two paths. Girls grow up saying: “Comic books are rather my brother’s things.”
One of the elements that really broke that, in the 90s too, is manga.
Manga was read by both boys and girls.
The Japanese publishing industry had understood much earlier — for very commercial reasons — that it also needed to make girls read.
And that for that, it was enough, for example, to create heroines they could identify with.
Even today, manga is one of the most promising markets in comic books in France. And especially because it managed to attract girls and, behind that, create generations of female authors and artists.
I don’t think there are inherently comics “for boys” or “for girls.”
I like reading female authors—in comics, but not only—because I want to hear stories and about characters that are different from the ones we’ve been hearing since we learned to write.
That is to say, a lot of stories about guys telling stories about guys.
Nadia Daam — You could say exactly the same thing about literature.
There’s also this somewhat absurd categorization between children’s literature and adult literature.
You can be fourteen and read books for adults. And conversely, be a forty-year-old woman and love a book aimed more at teenagers or preteens.
Déborah Pham — I feel like things have been branded that way a lot.
In the 80s and 90s: Martine for girls, Lucky Luke or Asterix for boys…
Even though girls also read Asterix.
Pénélope Bagieu — Exactly. It just wasn’t marketed that way.
Déborah Pham — And do you think that’s still relevant today?
Pénélope Bagieu — Yes, absolutely.
We still haven’t solved the underlying problem: the masculine is considered neutral.
By default, a story with a boy is universal. A story with a girl is “for girls.”
As long as we haven’t solved that riddle…
Déborah Pham — Your contribution to this problem, Pénélope, is notably Les Culottées. The lack of…
Pénélope Bagieu — Representation.
My contribution is mainly trying to make stories good enough so that they aren’t considered made for a particular audience.
Trying to create characters consistent and interesting enough so that, if someone opens the book without thinking, “This is a story about a woman,” they simply find the story good.
With Les Culottées, I saw a lot of children at meet-and-greets and signings.
And there were many more little boys among the little girls than adult men among the women.
I don’t think it’s a barrier for children at all.
A little boy reads thirty stories with super cool characters. At the end, eventually, he realizes: “Oh, but wait, they were all women.”
But he didn’t ask himself that before.
On the other hand, I saw a lot of parents and booksellers say, “This is a really great book to put in the hands of all little girls.”
It’s very well-intentioned, but why only little girls?
Why couldn’t boys project themselves into characters of super cool women?
Steve Dolfi — Exactly, I had a question about the design of a comic book.
I’d like to understand what was passed on to you so that you go from drawing on the dining room table to the moment you say, “I’m going to make this my job.”
From when do you tell yourself that your destiny can be different from someone else’s and that you can make it happen?
Pénélope Bagieu — I don’t think that’s really what was passed on to me.
I think rather it’s what they forgot to pass on to me: limitations.
I never heard: “This isn’t a job.”
I think it all comes down to that.
I never heard: “Yes, but you’ll still have to find a real job.”
And since I was never told that, it all happened very naturally and innocently.
I drew when I was little. I drew all the time. I said it was what I loved doing most in the world.
So it seemed logical, like to any child, to tell myself, “In that case, it could be my job.”
And at no point did anyone come and tell me, “Yes, but it’s not a job.”
Steve Dolfi — But don’t you feel like there’s a point when children put down the crayons?
Pénélope Bagieu — Around ten years old.
Steve Dolfi — What do you have to give these children so they don’t put them down?
Pénélope Bagieu — There’s nothing you can do about that.
In a sixth-grade class, at the point when many children stop drawing because they discover other things in life, there are always two or three who keep going.
Because they love it.
It’s no longer just a hobby.
It’s their fortress. The place where they are themselves, where everything is possible.
When drawing has a place in your life that is bigger than a simple pastime, you can’t really stop. Otherwise, you’ll miss it.
But I’m also convinced that children for whom this isn’t the case can rediscover a lot of pleasure in drawing as adults.
It’s never too late.
You can love drawing your whole life without necessarily wanting to make it your job.
I wish adults would allow themselves more creative parts in their lives.
It can be drawing, scrapbooking, anything.
Simply rediscover something that, as a child, gave us joy, and tell ourselves that there’s no reason for that joy to disappear from our lives simply because it’s not our job.
Déborah Pham — It’s coming back a bit today. There are coloring books for adults, creative hobbies…
Pénélope Bagieu — Coloring, all the way.
We’d be better off if everyone did this kind of thing.
Déborah Pham — First, there’s the pleasure of drawing. And then, the stories we can tell with drawings.
When you were little, was that already it?
Pénélope Bagieu — When I was little, I drew because I thought that what we drew was better than real life.
Déborah Pham — Life is good, but…
Pénélope Bagieu — It can be better.
There isn’t enough magic.
I was obsessed with the idea of finding secret passages when I was little. It was my dream.
And at one point, you realize there aren’t any.
Déborah Pham — The world of Narnia?
Pénélope Bagieu — Exactly.
I remember an ice cream commercial when I was little.
A woman was in her kitchen and wanted to surprise her guests for dessert. She opened her freezer and entered a magical world, with garlands of flowers, animals, an elephant, a man in a suit who gave her the ice cream…
Then she came back to her kitchen with her cones.
And I, when I was little, said to myself, “But that’s it, damn it, the life I want!”
Nadia Daam — Me too, I opened my freezer.
Pénélope Bagieu — There! I said to myself, “Okay, where’s the secret passage?”
I looked everywhere for it.
There were old linoleum tiles in my room and I said to myself, “Maybe one of them isn’t a real tile and it’s going to open with the little Zelda sound.”
But no.
It was just crappy linoleum. There was nothing in my freezer.
And I think drawing was my way of breaking that and telling myself, “There are no limits. When you draw, life can be magical.”
That’s what drawing is also a child’s fortress.
Even today, I have the same joy as when I was three and a half when I have to draw a forest.
I know that, in real life, trees don’t necessarily have this color and that the sky doesn’t have this color in the evening.
But I, that’s how I would like life to be.
So I draw it that way.
Déborah Pham — So it’s a matter of fantasy, then?
Pénélope Bagieu — Absolutely.
Déborah Pham — You imagine life at its best.
Pénélope Bagieu — In any case, that’s how I’d like it to be.
Déborah Pham — And you were talking a lot about forests lately…
Pénélope Bagieu — Because I just released a graphic novel with very long forest scenes, so I had to draw a lot of forests.
And it was really cool because they didn’t have to look like real forests.
Déborah Pham — What is your new book about? Briefly, because you must be tired of talking about it.
Pénélope Bagieu — No, I love my book right now!
La Nuit retrouvée, published by Gallimard on November 5, is a story I co-wrote with Lola Lafon.
It’s about a mother.
Déborah Pham — There, a little product placement for À la Mère de Famille…
Pénélope Bagieu — Exactly.
Nadia saw it before it was even released. She had the penciled version, the storyboard.
The main character goes on vacation with her children, who are now adults. And she tells them about the first vacation she ever spent alone with them, after a separation.
On this occasion, she confides a secret to her daughter.
It’s neither something absolutely crazy nor something minor. But it was something that meant a lot to her.
And her daughter discovers, astonished, that her mother is not just a mother.
Déborah Pham — That’s why you were interested in Nadia’s feedback.
Nadia Daam — I’m a mommy.
Déborah Pham — Since you both write, do you have any rituals?
Because I imagine you in little dens, with chocolates, duvets, cats for Pénélope…
Nadia Daam — Duvets for cats!
Déborah Pham — What are your creative rituals?
Nadia Daam — I would love to have a ritual as sexy as the one you describe.
But not at all.
I write in my pajamas when it’s cold, with my cat around — who has usually just done something disgusting in its litter box, so it stinks.
I smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, work in bed, and fall asleep in bed.
That’s it.
On the other hand, I love listening to interviews with authors who talk about their writing rituals.
And I’ve noticed a big difference.
When male authors talk about their writing, there’s never any domestic life.
They’re always with their forehead pressed against a window or walking through the woods to find inspiration.
While women have a washing machine.
Déborah Pham — The mental load doesn’t disappear.
Nadia Daam — Exactly.
Women will say, “I get up and write before the children wake up,” or “I manage to get it done between two work things.”
Men always have this kind of great freedom.
Pénélope Bagieu — “I go away to work in isolation for three weeks.”
Nadia Daam — I’ve heard it a thousand times!
Pénélope Bagieu — “I went to Tuscany.”
Nadia Daam — There. On a writing retreat.
With a little peaty whisky…
Déborah Pham — And you, Pénélope? You’ve quit smoking, so no cigarettes.
Pénélope Bagieu — No cigarettes, no cat either.
But I don’t have a very romantic ritual either.
I’ve stuck to the logic of school life and then office life.
I can only work during office hours.
I think it’s very sexy when people say, “I can only write well at night.”
At night, I sleep.
And I don’t want to get up at five in the morning to see the first rays of sunlight either.
I simply say, “Right, that’s it, everything is done, let’s get started.” It’s nine o’clock, and we’re going until six.
And it’s true that, now that you mention it, all the men I know in the graphic novel who have somewhat extravagant writing rituals don’t really have a domestic life to go with them.
Déborah Pham — What’s an extravagant ritual?
Pénélope Bagieu — There’s an author I really like, who works very well, and who said, “I do one page of a graphic novel a day. It takes as long as it takes.”
If it takes until midnight, it takes until midnight. But if the page is quick and it’s finished by ten in the morning, the day is over.
I would say to him, “That’s great! So when you finish at ten, you then have time to…”
He replies, “I’m going for a walk.”
And I say, “I love it.”
Because if I finish my day at ten, I say, “Perfect! I can go to the pharmacy, do the shopping…”
I’m certainly not going for a walk.
But then again, maybe it’s also a question of age, I don’t know.
My only ritual, finally, is that I’m always rushing to hand in my stuff.
Déborah Pham — Do you sometimes try to tell yourselves, “On this project, this time, I’m going to have a proper routine, eat properly…” and then you end up being overtaken by caffeine?
Nadia Daam — I tried recently.
And I’m making fun of myself because I just made fun of men who go on writing retreats: I did one.
I went to Marseille for a week.
I had bought an electronic cigarette so I wouldn’t smoke cigarettes. I had told myself, “No wine, no alcohol for a week. You’re going to eat well.”
The first evening, I did my little shopping. I had salads, carrots… An absolutely spotless fridge.
After two days, I was at McDonald’s.
I ate there and I even got a second McDonald’s to go for the evening, which I reheated in the microwave.
So my healthy routine resolutions didn’t hold.
But I hate eating badly. And I hate being hungry.
If you write while hungry, or having eaten badly, or not feeling full, you write badly.
Or you don’t write at all.
Pénélope Bagieu — If you’re starving, you write badly.
Nadia Daam — You can’t think about anything but your hunger.
For me, there’s really nothing that annoys me more than going to a restaurant and eating badly.
I can think about it until evening, saying to myself, “I experience it as an injustice.”
It’s horrible to have eaten something and be disappointed.
Déborah Pham — And you, Pénélope, what’s your relationship with food when you work?
Pénélope Bagieu — Since I’m all alone at home and my days are quite studious, lunch is really my fun moment.
So it’s really important to me that it’s very good.
Otherwise, my day still becomes quite sad.
It’s not always haute cuisine. But there’s a particular pleasure in cooking only for yourself, completely disregarding whether it would please someone else.
You don’t have your boyfriend next to you saying, “Oh, I don’t really like that.”
I don’t care, I’m all alone.
I make myself something that really pleases me.
Over the years, I also realized that if I don't eat well today, tomorrow will be the same. So I really try to make this lunch something pleasant, because it's my break.
And my dream is to have lunch before noon because I'm 95 years old.
I love having lunch early.
Around eleven o'clock, I start to get hungry and I tell myself: "I have to hold on a little longer."
At 11:30, I start cooking and I have lunch alone.
It's wonderful.
It's really wonderful to have lunch alone at home after preparing something good.
Déborah Pham — With a series?
Pénélope Bagieu — Yes. Something that pleases me.
I look at the time on my phone and I tell myself: "Come on, at 1 p.m., we'll start again."
Déborah Pham — So it's a real work ritual.
Pénélope Bagieu — I have to.
When you work from home, if you don't set boundaries for your day, it's no longer a workday.
And when you're writing a book, when you're on the same project for two years, you have to set boundaries everywhere, all the time.
You have to tell yourself: "By the end of the week, I absolutely have to be there, otherwise it's a downward spiral."
Déborah Pham — You never leave your house to work?
Pénélope Bagieu — No.
Except at the end of my last comic book. I was so behind that I told myself: "Even my own house has become a distraction."
I had to find a way to be even more isolated.
I went away for a week to a place where I knew I wouldn't see anyone. I had no reception, no Internet.
I was in a tiny house where I really had nothing else to do.
I woke up with the sun and worked until midnight like a maniac.
Then I went to bed and started again six hours later.
I did that for a week and accomplished two months' worth of work.
It was great.
Déborah Pham — But no burnout?
Pénélope Bagieu — No, because I was all alone and everything else fell by the wayside.
Visually, for example, it was pretty catastrophic. A week without seeing anyone…
I still took a shower a day, we don't even know why!
But otherwise, I didn't give a damn.
I had brought food to reheat and there really was nothing left but work.
At first, I planned to stay for three days, then go home to see Beyoncé at the Stade de France.
But I was working so well that I was texting my boyfriend saying: "Damn, it's a shame because I'm really on a roll. If I stayed two more days, I could finish a lot of pages."
And he replied: "Don't you think you should stay two more days?"
And I: "Yes… and Beyoncé at the same time."
But life is wonderfully well made: there were tickets for another date three days later.
So he told me: "Stay and work, we'll go see Beyoncé in three days."
Déborah Pham — Well, the reward!
Pénélope Bagieu — Nadia's daughter took my place for the first date.
And I, indeed, added forty pages.
When you're on a good work roll, it becomes completely exponential. The machine gets going and you no longer want to stop.
I came back with my huge stack of finished pages saying: "But if I had done that for a month, my book would have been released a year ago!"
It's crazy, the power of isolation.
And especially the absence of your friend who sends you a message at 5 p.m. saying: "I'm so sick of working. How about we stop and go for a drink?"
Nadia Daam — That, unfortunately, we do often.
Déborah Pham — An afterwork.
Pénélope Bagieu — Exactly.
Déborah Pham — What did you pass on to each other? Are there things you learned from each other?
I imagine that, since Nadia sees a lot of things in advance in your work, there must be proofreading, feedback…
Nadia Daam — I saw Pénélope working on La Nuit retrouvée for three years and I was really fascinated by her work ethic.
You have to imagine what it means to work on the same subject for so long.
That's what novel or comic book authors do.
After a while, you might not be able to stand your characters anymore.
In any case, when I'm on a text for a very long time, it happens to me that I can no longer stand it at all.
And Pénélope has always kept — in this book as in previous ones — a love for her characters that is quite crazy.
I would find her after she had worked all day. She was tired. I would ask her: "So, how is the book going?"
She would tell me: "It's hard…"
Then, as soon as she started talking to me about her characters, I had the impression that she was talking about her favorite people in the world.
Déborah Pham — With enthusiasm.
Nadia Daam — Exactly. And a crazy attachment.
It may sound silly to say, but looking at the love an author feels for the characters they have created, I find it magnificent.
This is not the case for all authors.
In hers, you feel a real attention, a curiosity, a tenderness for the characters.
Déborah Pham — And when you read Pénélope's comics, I find that you can also find it in the line. There is a tenderness in the way you draw the characters.
Pénélope Bagieu — That's nice.
But it's also complicated to spend so much time with someone if you don't love them.
A comic book author gave me this advice a long time ago: "Make sure you really love your characters, because you are going to spend a lot of time together."
And it's true.
When you have to draw someone in nine panels per page for three hundred pages, if after six months you can no longer stand them, it will be long.
So yes, you really have to love them.
Déborah Pham — And you too, Nadia, in the end. When we were talking about La Gosse, it was particularly obvious since it was about your daughter.
Nadia Daam — Yes, so her, I appreciate her.
But there, I am precisely finishing a novel that is a real fiction, on which I have been working for a year.
And I tried to draw inspiration from what Pénélope had told me: you have to love your characters.
So I created characters that I love and that I want to see again the next day.
Not characters that make me think: "Oh dear, this bitch again…"
There, it's the complete opposite.
And, anyway, telling stories, it's really the best thing in the world.
Déborah Pham — You just started it?
Nadia Daam — No, I'm finishing it.
Déborah Pham — Oh yes! So you're still in the middle of your stories of rituals.
I think there must also be a question of temporality.
When you take two years to make a comic book, you don't have immediate satisfaction. Whereas when you take a break to cook something, you have it right away.
Pénélope Bagieu — Completely.
Activities with a fast temporality are super soothing.
Something that gives an immediate result.
When you make a comic book, you draw the characters all day. You feed them constantly.
Whereas you can have a plant next to you and say: “Oh look, it’s flowering. I just have to give it a little water every now and then.”
It’s incredibly satisfying.
Cooking is the same.
It’s instant. It’s now. You enjoy it now.
You’re not constantly telling yourself: “It’s boring today, but in two and a half years, I’m going to be so happy!”
Because that’s also the long, slow slog of a comic book.
Telling yourself: “Yes, right now I’m on page 12… But you’ll see when I’m on page 250, we’re going to have a laugh!”
Déborah Pham — Since this is a podcast about transmission, to finish: Pénélope, what is the most important thing that has been passed on to you?
Pénélope Bagieu — How simple is that question!
I immediately think of my parents.
Steve Dolfi — Your mom draws?
Pénélope Bagieu — Yes, very well. Everyone in my family draws.
I even had a grandmother who was a painter. An amateur, but she painted and there are still many of her paintings in the house.
Déborah Pham — It seems the answer isn’t far away.
Pénélope Bagieu — Yes.
I was passed on the idea that drawing was simply an activity that was part of life.
People draw.
Just as people brush their teeth or put on their shoes: people draw too.
It was completely normal.
It’s a rather passive transmission, in the end. I simply saw people doing it all the time.
There have also always been books and images in my home.
And in terms of privilege and time saved later on, growing up surrounded by books and beautiful images is perhaps the most useful thing that was passed on to me.
Déborah Pham — For a child who draws, does telling them it’s pretty or that it’s good encourage them to keep going?
Pénélope Bagieu — Here, I know the best advice to give parents who want their children to draw.
It’s something whose importance I had never realized until I talked about it with other female artists and we realized that we all had this in common.
We had very quickly desanctified our drawings.
In our house, we didn’t constantly say: “Oh, it’s magnificent, I’m going to frame it!”
Because otherwise, you put enormous pressure on every drawing.
You end up understanding that the goal of drawing is to be beautiful, so that in the end your parents say it’s magnificent and frame it.
In our house, on the other hand, there was a huge amount of absolutely terrible scrap paper.
And it was never a big deal to ruin it.
You know, those sheets with little holes on the sides, old printer paper…
And cheap markers, the box of thirty-six markers from the supermarket.
So we didn’t sanctify the tools or the paper.
If you made an ugly line and decided: “It’s terrible, I’m throwing it away,” no one cared.
It was a piece of junk paper.
It wasn’t a big deal.
And so, you make a million drawings instead of ten.
Déborah Pham — It’s great advice.
Pénélope Bagieu — Don’t sanctify the drawing tools, and don’t sanctify each of the children’s drawings by saying: “This one deserves to be on the fridge. This one, you didn’t try very hard.”
What matters is that you are drawing.
Of course, it’s also good to tell a child: “What you’re doing is beautiful.”
I wouldn’t recommend telling them: “It’s still pretty crappy.”
Déborah Pham — “I don’t know where to put this one…”
Steve Dolfi — “It’s pretty crappy,” it’s normal to be able to say it, isn’t it?
Pénélope Bagieu — Certainly not like that!
I had seen a video where someone advised, to compliment a child’s drawings, to ask them questions rather than simply saying: “Oh, it’s very beautiful.”
For example: “That’s funny, why did you choose to do it in orange?”
It shows that you are genuinely interested in what they have done.
You don’t just say: “It’s magnificent, honey,” while you are busy doing something else.
You ask them about their artistic choices: “What did you want to represent?”
Afterward, I asked myself: “Did my parents do that with me?”
No.
They were parents in the 80s. They were not at all into this kind of doctrine.
But in any case: find some big piece of junk paper, put out tons of it, with cheap markers, and let them draw.
Déborah Pham — So, can we throw away some of our children’s drawings or not?
Pénélope Bagieu — At some point, you still have to sort through them.
Déborah Pham — It’s very hard.
Nadia Daam — They can’t know.
Déborah Pham — I’m not going to tell them.
Nadia Daam — “We were robbed, honey. They only took your drawings.”
Pénélope Bagieu — They’ll forget! They’re not going to come back three years later saying: “Excuse me, archive check.”
Déborah Pham — I’m capable of doing something like that.
Nadia Daam — That, those are the procedural children.
Déborah Pham — I should work in administration.
Nadia, are you ready?
Nadia Daam — Yes, but then: the question is what was passed on to me or what I, want to pass on?
Déborah Pham — There was the Steve Dolfi version and mine.
Nadia Daam — That being said, I think the two meet.
Me, I have a mother who has the immense quality of not being a “powerful woman.”
It’s an expression I hate.
I don’t like the praise of power. I don’t like the praise of crushing.
I like vulnerable people.
I like people who own it.
I like being fragile sometimes.
We’re not bulldozers.
And this discourse on power annoys me a little.
My mother was not like that at all.
She didn’t make a big deal out of it. She didn’t spend her time saying: “Look, I raised five children alone.”
She did things very humbly and very simply.
And pretty well, since there are five of us children and we are rather successful.
Pénélope Bagieu — Except for one who will recognize themselves.
Nadia Daam — No, that’s not me!
Everyone except one.
No, not at all. My brothers are great.
My mother was not at all crushing.
And I try not to be with my daughter.
I also know that having a mother who wrote a book about you can be a bit overwhelming.
But my mother taught me to stay in my place.
It’s the complete opposite of that “powerful woman” speech.
We’re told, “You can be whatever you want.”
And of course I can be whatever I want.
But I just want to be myself, in my place as a woman who does pretty much what she can.
I don’t tell my daughter, “You’ll be the head of the IMF!”
She doesn’t give a damn.
She’ll do whatever she wants to do.
And if she’s not consumed by ambition, that’s okay.
Déborah Pham — That’s something you were given and that you’re trying to pass on in turn.
Nadia Daam — You could also call it “laziness.”
I’m incredibly lazy, and when I look at my daughter, the thing she says most often is, “I’m lazy.”
But laziness is good too.
Personally, I prefer laziness to power.
Steve Dolfi — I have mixed feelings about laziness. When my fifteen-year-old son tells me, “I’m lazy,” I want to…
Nadia Daam — Of course, it’s incredibly annoying.
But that’s also how we were at his age.
Steve Dolfi — That’s what we tell ourselves to reassure ourselves.
Nadia Daam — But I think we should respect that.
We were talking about it again last night with Pénélope: wanting to conserve your energy, not always wanting to see people, being able to say, “I can’t take it anymore. I’m going home, I’m going to be alone.”
Being too lazy to make an effort.
Personally, I have a lot of respect for people who know how to conserve their energy and stay home.
Déborah Pham — The circle is complete.
Do you see each other all the time, the two of you?
Nadia Daam — Not very much lately, because now she works all the time.
But otherwise, yes, a lot.
Déborah Pham — Do you have a ritual together?
Pénélope Bagieu — We don’t live very far from each other, for one thing, so that makes things easier.
Déborah Pham — Do you have a home base?
Nadia Daam — At Pénélope’s.
Pénélope Bagieu — The cats.
Nadia Daam — The cats make us not want to go to bars anymore.
I don’t even know how you manage to work without spending all day gazing at them.
They’re very, very beautiful.
Pénélope Bagieu — Yes.
Nadia Daam — I saw the latest one.
Pénélope Bagieu — When they’re ugly, it’s maybe easier.
Nadia Daam — I’m the godmother of the latest one.
Pénélope Bagieu — She’s the godmother of my latest cat.
Déborah Pham — And do you come with your little cat carrier to see her?
Nadia Daam — Not really, because she doesn’t pay me any attention at all.
Pénélope Bagieu — And my cat isn’t very nice at all.
Déborah Pham — Oh really?
Pénélope Bagieu — She’s a real thug.
Nadia Daam — A real thug.
Déborah Pham — Bad-tempered?
Pénélope Bagieu — She messes with people. She walks around with a swagger.
And besides, she’s tiny, black, and adorable.
So you naturally want to go, “Oh baby!” and pick her up.
But if you’ve seen Sacré Graal by Monty Python, you know the rabbit that pounces on you?
That’s it.
Nadia Daam — Even with my treats, she doesn’t give a damn.
But I love her.
Déborah Pham — Girls, it was so great having you.
And you too, Steve!
Girls and Steve, it was great having you around the table at L’Heure du Goûter. I hope we’ll see each other again.
Pénélope Bagieu — With great pleasure.
Nadia Daam — Thank you for inviting us to this beautiful table.
Déborah Pham — Thank you for sharing the snack with us.
Pénélope Bagieu — Can we eat everything now?
__
Every month, journalist Déborah Pham and Steve Dolfi, co-owner of Paris’s oldest chocolate shop, host inspiring guests for a snack in the secret dining room of the historic boutique. People we want to listen to and hear talk about transmission. Each guest arrives with a confidant, someone who matters, from whom they received an influence or to whom they passed on a certain view of the world. For one hour, we talk about bonds, memories, and what is passed on without us even thinking about it. A conversation without filters and with our mouths full, because here you’re allowed to.
