On the occasion of the release of Kid Paddle's latest album – Tattoo included – Author Midam offered himself a book tour across France. With the young Mateo – a brigadier of fun hired by MaG for the occasion – we were able to meet him during his visit to the Kleber Bookshop in Strasbourg, the last date of his tour.
Blue: Hello Midam. Thank you for giving us a little of your time after your signing session and especially after a book tour of 6 dates in France. Not too tired? The audience was at the meeting?
The tour went well. The public is always at the rendezvous, although they are not necessarily comic book lovers; We sometimes have dedication lovers, quite simply, who come to expand their collection. Kid Paddle and Game Over are two popular drawing tapes and there is always a world of dedications. We've even had to refuse people. After four hours of signing, you must know how to stop. But I'm still trying to satisfy everyone, even if you have to overtake the schedule. That's the least I can do. It makes it possible to return a little what the public gave.
Besides, it allows me to socialize. I work in studio, but virtual. With my collaborators, like Adam, we meet on WhatsApp or by email - I see it once a year. I work a lot alone and see people, now I like it. It's an immediate return. Social networks also allow an even more immediate return. I'm going almost once a day. It's motivating and we get a lot of sympathy.
Mateo: Midam, why? « Midam » ?
My first name is Michel and my last name, Ledent. I had thought of doing "Mident" by associating half my first name with half my last name, and to be original, I spelled it "Midam", as for Adam, but everyone said "Midame", it remained.
I took a pseudonym because when I started, there was no artist status, it was hard to make a living and so the first drawings were paid in black, so I couldn't sign my real name, in case of tax control.
If you look at the cartoonists at the time, there were Roba, Morris,... they're all pseudos. I wanted to be like the elders.
Mateo: I had the chance to see your Exposure at the national centre of the drawing band in Brussels this summer. I was very impressed with the paintings you painted when you were in the army. What was the influence of painting in your work and why did you turn to comics?
Indeed, when I performed my military service in the naval force, I made paintings because I was in the office of a corvette captain who asked me to draw boats. So I did, I was very happy and then I went to show these drawings to publishers. They said, "But you know, we're not interested in boats. Don't you know how to make funny characters instead?" I said I couldn't do it, but I could learn.
When I came home, I learned in 6 years because I didn't want to work much, I was unemployed. I was working hard for two hours and I was calling a boyfriend to go make a billiard. Anyway, I didn't do anything for six years.
One day, a click was made and I sent all my drawings to 100 French and Belgian newspapers/magazines, including Spirou. The latter offered to give me small orders from time to time. So I had a toe in the square, I felt responsible and spent an entire afternoon for a tiny corner drawing; I wanted to be noticed. And that's what happened. Spirou proposed to create a character for the video game section. It could have been any column, I needed a pretext to start something.
So I worked like this for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 25 years in comics. And comics are all codes, grids, boxes. You need a story, create characters,... It's long and laborious. After so long, I wanted to go back to my navy boats. I work with assistants for comics but I also make great paintings, I play with painting.
Of course, I'm still in comics, and I'm known for it. It would be silly not to continue.
Blue: And you have to pay the rent too!
Yes, you have to pay rent, debts,... escorts [laughs].
Blue: Apart from painting, as we have seen, what are your sources of inspiration, what arts fuel your work? Obviously the fantastic/d-horror cinema?
Of course, I've always been attracted to the monstrous ban. I don't know at all the psychological nature of the thing. These are discussions that I have often had with Zep (Titeuf) and Janry (The Little Spirou). For them, the forbidden is girls, looking in the hole of the lock. When I was a kid, the girls were extraterrestrials, I didn't have any girl friends, I was in a non-mixed Catholic school. Girls, we didn't talk about it, I only learned very late how to make kids and when I was told, I didn't believe it. [laughs].
So I, the forbidden, was the horror movie. I was in front of a cinema and every month there was a gore poster - which we couldn't show today. From 16 years old, every Friday, I was going to see a horror movie, it appears very strongly in Kid Paddle. At first, I made the movie posters a little fast, then I started drawing them better, in the idea of being able to make them big, in painting - it's a project.
Literature level, it was mainly news, short stories: Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Maupassant. There is an extremely black, dark side.
In Well and Pendulum Allan Poe, there's a guy who's tied up, lying down, with an axe in a balance above him and coming down. This is Game Over Hey! It's from there. Graphically, it's Umberto Giacometti, not in sculpture, I don't like too much, but in paintings. Brown tones, face collage,... I do things like that with the Blorks.
Mateo: I read in previous interviews that you didn't play video games. You've been there ever since?
No, no more. Because I'm very very very much a player. At Dupuis, as I was in the video games section, a Mega Drive console was lent. At the time, I smoked cigarettes and realized an extraordinary phenomenon: I lit my cigarette, I put it in the ashtray, I played and, when I took it back, it was completely consumed! I didn't understand what was going on. Time with the video game passed very fast. Immediately, I felt a danger at this level. This is absolutely not compatible with a work that takes as much time, like comics.
If I was a complete fan of video games, I couldn't have made so many albums. I would have spoken only to those who know the video game and it's just a tiny slice of the audience.
Blue: We were talking about Janry earlier. Are there any gags you drew from? Especially those where Horace ends up at the hospital and Kid brings him a little present.
Janry was a little bit horned by Philippe Tome, so it was hard to brainstorm with him about the Little Spirou, Tome was completely locking things up. On the other hand, we were trading gags, I was doing for Give me the sky and brainstorming for Kid Paddle. For example, Big Bang, the little scientist, is Janry who vaguely drew it. He really learned to draw, he's the best teacher in the world.
For hospital gags too, it's true. But you're the first to notice that! [laughs]
Blue: Could you tell us about your editorial background? You released your first albums at Dupuis before mounting Mad Fabrik, your own publishing house, a visit to Glénat And for this latest comic book, we'll meet you at Dupuis. What happened?
You know, when I work with someone, if the person disappoints me, I stop the collaboration. That's what happened; We had some dissension, I said, "if you go on like this, I'm going." They continued like that, I went away.
From Dupuis, I did Mad Fabrik, I self-edited and for the moment I managed to yell with myself, I was not at all in agreement with what I was doing. If that's how it is, I'll stop [laughs].
Then I went to Glénat. I was told he was a publisher, but I never met the publisher, I met a businessman. A bad businessman, the guy who doesn't laugh. Within hours - on five years of contract - it has immediately tried to mingle, moreover it has succeeded. We agreed on something and he's making another one. I thought, "Okay, with you, it's already over." Unfortunately, I had already signed, so I had to honour my contract.
Then, by elimination, I came back to Dupuis. I'd done a lot of it. DelcourtBut I don't like it at all. And then Bamboo and others, but they lack a little prestige.
I was told that there was a new director at DupuisI had to meet him. I had a good contact, he understood my trajectory. I've been working with him for three years now, we've been getting along. And for the first time, I have a publisher who respects his commitments. I think I'll stay here while it works.
They also brought me the Spirou park, which is something that is totally, literally enchanting. Amusement parks have always been a dream for me. You can't die in a amusement park. It's like a hypermarket, you can't die in a hypermarket either. If you fall on the floor, cashiers, security guards will come, call an ambulance, it's a protected environment. When I'm old, I want to go to a home in a supermarket [laughs].
Mateo: Does your publishing house charge you a number of numbers each year for Kid Paddle and Game Over ?
Yeah, of course, but we're getting together. He asks me how much I can do with it. The usual rhythm is an album of one series per year. From there, can we imagine making an album for Kid Paddle, one for Game Over ? As they are publishers and they always need money, obviously they ask "Euh, would there be a way to make a third one? But don't have much to do..." So we take old gags and make a best-of. Every publisher does that.
Blue: Yes, I could see that with Little SpirouI don't like it at all. There may be one or two new gags, but that's it. No interest if we've already read the other albums.
Yeah, sure, but it's free money. At first, I was afraid that I might be attacked on social networks. I really waited until I was told that I was not fair-play, that I had to tell the publisher to stop the best-of. But I never got that kind of message.
And Glénat shot, and still shoot, even now that I'm gone, a dozen albums. Every three months I got the girl Glénat on the phone. "Best-of, best-of, best-of! It's great, it's easy, you don't realize, you can shoot the public, they have an extraordinary tolerance, you have to press the public! We just need to print the cover and fill it with what we find." It's easy, but I shave the walls. There had been a best-of "princesse" that escaped, I had so much work at that time. I had demanded that they put "best-of" on the cover. And they "forget" to put "best-of."
And then the disease went through with Dupuis: we're going to make a special Father's Day.
Mateo: How fast do you work?
I organized myself to try to produce a certain quantity with a certain quality. There was a time when I didn't, I made an album every 2-3 years. But this is dangerous, because the public tends to forget. Especially with the resurgence of products like manga that have a huge rate of release. We don't know how to compete with the salaries here.
Mateo: Do you treat albums as Kid Paddle and Game Over In parallel or one after the other?
I do everything at the same time. I have a large wall with magnets and ideas of the various projects. In fact, the most important thing is the blankets, you have to find a gag, but you also have to find a material, which attracts your eye. We had ideas with phosphorescent inks, rough varnishes, a sandy texture,... We have a lot of projects like this and we have fun.
Mateo: What equipment do you work with?
The Pentel GFKP. They ask me once a day on social media [laughs]. It really changed my life. It's a Japanese brush. With this you sign up, when you remove the cartridge, it slows down the ink flow, it starts to thirst. And then you can make boards, I make all my boards with that.
Otherwise the techniques are china ink for comics pages, otherwise the illustrations are watercolour.
Blue: For your first albums, you were in the script and illustrations. Since then, you've worked with writers. Does it come from an overload of work, a lack of time or simply from inspiration?
It started when the editor Disney Hachette interested in Kid's character. They wanted to replace Little Wolf, which began to lose breath, by Kid Paddle Magazine. The problem is, I made four boards a month of Kid Paddle, insufficient for an homonymous magazine. So I was looking for an assistant to double the rate of Game Over, because it seemed easier to do. I took the guy whose drawing was closest to mine. I taught him, he took the fold completely and we were able to fill the magazine with 8 pages of comics instead of 4.
When we got 80 boards of Game Over, I suggested to the publisher to edit, but they were really not hot because it was silent. They made a somewhat shy attempt and all sold out. At first, I was very afraid that he would steal the star from Kid, so I made an album every two years. Then an album every year, and now, on the latest news, it sells more than one Kid Paddle !
Mateo: There is also the site gameoverforever.com which allows anyone to send scenarios for Game Over.
Yes, since 2008. I'm buying the gags on the package. I've had a lot of kids who managed to put one in. Well, it's a little weird, they have to sign a 25-page lawyer's office contract. Often I get letters from parents completely upset: "I don't understand, you're talking about money with my son? - Yes, your son won 400.€, he wrote a gag scenario." But they're not interested in money, it's the name at the bottom of the page.
The problem is, it was 2008. I had to get 32,000 or 33,000 gags. I read them all. But in 13 years, I change myself. Sometimes there are things that didn't make me laugh back then, that make me laugh now. So I accept gags today that I refused yesterday to someone else. So there are people who see a gag go through Game Over And they say I stole their son's gag, signed by another name. That's shit. I explain to them what I just said. I repaint them the script, send them a signing and in the next draw his name is added.
I bought about 250. I found scriptwriters. The guy who works on Kid Paddle and from time to time makes Game OverPatelin, he's a math teacher. I'm making a Game Over whole with a 22 year old. I'm glad. The most important thing is that the gag is funny, not that I find it.
Blue: What was your role in designing the animated series Kid Paddle ?
It is above all a validation role. I co-wrote 6 or 7 cartoons. The animation was done in Korea. I had to do the do/don, Kid Paddle can or can't do some things. He never cry, he never laughs at tears,...
One day, I was asked to hold a meeting with 15 writers mandated by the producers. I realized the writers were broken arms. It's mean to say it like that, but it's like that. If they were good, they would have made their own universe. We couldn't have a great deal of complicity, it was food work for them.
However, a very friendly picture of the series came out, we had good returns. Especially in places where it was difficult to get an album, but where the animated series was broadcast on TV (Mauritius Island, Iraq...).
Blue: The animated series still has 2 seasons.
It exported to a lot of countries, but there was no communication between translation and animation services, which were in different countries. The series was co-produced in Quebec. They had doubled the English series for the English-speaking Canadian market and the American market. But there is a cultural border between English-speaking Canada and the US, and even more so with French-speaking Canada. All the money earned in Quebec was lost on the English side.
Neither has there ever been any penetration of the American market.
Mateo: Are the characters of Kid Paddle Are inspired by real people?
No, it's rather inspired by my many facets. Every character is a bit of me. My father was a civil engineer, so I have a scientific side for some things, it's Big Bang. When I was a child I had big glasses that I always broke, like Horace and then I love horror movies like Kid.
Mateo: Do you have an explanation for the fact that the characters of Game Over Almost inevitably lose an eye? Do we have to see any meaning?
It's a drawing tick, I should tell Adam that he does it less often, it's a bit systematic. He should lose a tooth, lower maxillary,... Adam goes to the simplest, I don't correct enough. There's no meaning, it's just a tick. I have a tick, for example, when a character holds something, he very often has a little finger in the air.
Blue: Kid Paddle doesn't grow up with albums, have you ever thought about doing it? Would that mean an end?
Only for a gag. Kid Paddle This is the notion of hero. He can't get older, because aging is dying. I don't like the stuff that ends, the end of the movies, the end of the holidays,... I'm not gonna stop it. Kid Paddle. Besides, I would write in my will, that it must continue!
Blue / Mateo: Midam, thanks again for giving us your time. We wish you a good continuation and a good return to Belgium.
I would like to thank the Midam press officers for their patience at the end of the signing session, the Kleber bookstore, Mateo for his valuable help, JC for helping with the transcription and of course Midam for this interview, his kindness and his good mood.
Blue
Cool thanks to both of you for this nice interview! Midam specifically answered the questions. It's always interesting to learn more about artists' career and behind the scenes of publishing.