Please tell us about your path to authoring and creating.
Creating is a need, an obligation, an uncontrollable impulse since my oldest memory. My brain is wired this way and I'm lucky to have had parents who recognized that in me. I'm always thinking about new ideas, work or non-work related. My inspirations are consciousness, history, science, music and chess!
If we have a mission on this earth, I think I'm on the right way :P
Drawing, writing, then dying, hahaha!
What is your process like?
Even if drawing was my main passion for the most part of my life, writing and thinking about the story are now the creating steps that drive me the most. For the current book that I am working on (Secret Passages #2), I wrote the story six months non-stop without doing one little drawing on the side. At one point, I thought I would go crazy...Comics are a wonderful and unique way to express art, probably my favorite with music, but they require so much energy and take an eternity to produce with almost no money at the end of the road. Sometimes I wonder why I'm imposing those sufferings on myself, haha...
How does your life inform your work?
For me, it's the same thing, they are inseparable. To create the most sincere art, I have to make bad decisions for my future :P! I refuse almost all the time to take commissions or other contracts, even if it could sometimes mean good money (very rarely). I don't see the point of doing art if I don't do it for myself first (creating according to my standards without compromising on money or on what other people would want for me. AI can do that stuff…).
So, I try to continue the way I do my work, but it gets more challenging the more I'm getting older.
The cost of living is constantly rising while artists' salaries are only going down.
What do you hope readers take with them from your work?
Regardless of if they like my work or not, I just wish they understand at least vaguely my message, my intention.
I used to do comic books in hope to be loved by everyone (and for many other bad reasons). I was young, naïve, and profoundly sad. Fortunately, I've found the real me and my place in this world! I think art is, among other things, about sharing information, and helping the collective consciousness to go forward. With my latest work, I won't go easy on the readers who are not used to going off the beaten track. I want to be honest to the readers, and the only way it can happen is by being honest with myself.
Any upcoming works/web spaces you'd like to share about?
I'm working on the second book of my series, Secret Passages. It's an autofiction/a what if of my life as a child if I were born in a female body. No self-gratification. Whether it's a fictional scene or based on a real event, everything is placed to make the best 1000 page series that I can. The first book is a long introduction. It was more about family, school, and anxiety (almost always with humour). The second book will deliver what the cliffhanger promises at the end of the first book. More spooky stuff, mysticism, sadness, but with the same humor. For the web spaces, I try to eliminate the web spaces of my life, haha !