{"id":109319,"date":"2017-03-28T16:40:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T20:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=109319"},"modified":"2017-03-28T17:21:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T21:21:00","slug":"tk-an-interview-with-penelope-bagieu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/28\/tk-an-interview-with-penelope-bagieu\/","title":{"rendered":"Dream a Little Dream of Me: An Interview with P\u00e9n\u00e9lope Bagieu"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

All images from California Dreamin\u2019<\/i> by P\u00e9n\u00e9lope Baigu.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI could <\/em>live at MoPOP,\u201d the French cartoonist P\u00e9n\u00e9lope Bagieu tells me. She has just returned from Seattle, where she debuted her new biography, <\/em>California Dreamin\u2019<\/a>, at the Emerald City Comicon. While there, she took in the Museum of Pop Culture: \u201cMy fascination is triggered by all the relationship drama, the rock \u2019n\u2019 roll anecdotes where everyone takes the stage angry, fighting behind the curtains.\u201d As a child, in Paris, she and her sister drew comics about Freddie Mercury, her \u201cchildhood icon,\u201d hand-making dozens of booklets about the members of Queen living in a fantasy communal house.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mike Dawson got to Mercury first\u2014his graphic memoir, <\/em>Freddie and Me<\/a>, was published in 2008\u2014but there\u2019s something of a recent trend of French comic books about dead American musicians, with Nicolas Otero\u2019s broody vision of Cobain, Mezzo and J. M. Dupont\u2019s woodcut rendering of Robert Johnson, Philippe Chanoinat\u00a0and\u00a0Fabrice Le Henanff\u2019s ode to Elvis, and now Bagieu\u2019s energetic portrait of Cass Elliot. In <\/em>California Dreamin\u2019, Cass is imagined in her formative years, as Ellen Cohen, before she became Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas (who really did live in a communal house and were consumed by intergroup romance and betrayal). The book closes before the birth of the daughter or her untimely death. I offer Bagieu my notion of Cass as yet another \u201ctragic figure\u201d of rock fame, but she dismisses it. Her Cass is unapologetic; the book is bursting with her talent, ambition, and drive\u2014and her unrequited loves, which help propel the plot.<\/em><\/p>\n

The book is also very much a celebration of Cass\u2019s beauty and her music, which often intertwine visually by way of Bagieu\u2019s curlicue lines and handwritten text, as when the familiar lyrics \u201cAllll the leaves are brown \u2026 \u201d\u00a0swirl together with cigarette smoke. Bagieu\u2019s drawings are superlative: soft pencil lines that convey detail without constraining her figures and that\u00a0animate the characters\u2019 exuberant facial expressions.<\/em><\/p>\n

She\u00a0is popular in France for her comics series \u201cLes Culott\u00e9es\u201d in the newspaper <\/em>Le Monde, charming portraits of women throughout history\u2014Mae Jemison, Peggy Guggenheim, Hedy Lamarr, to name a few\u2014whose accomplishments have been obscured. Cass Elliot\u2019s story, Bagieu declares, likewise \u201cneeded to be told.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

What drew you to the story of Cass Elliott?<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

My parents had a \u201cbest of\u201d compilation tape they would play over and over in our car, and in between Supertramp\u2014I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the same here, but in France all parents listen to Supertramp\u2014was the Mamas and the Papas. As a child, I didn\u2019t hear them as a band\u2014it was only one singer, just her<\/em>. The others were background vocals. I stole that tape and listened to it in my bedroom through my broken stereo, which had only one speaker, so I\u2019d hear the track of her voice without the rest, without even the music. I learned all the songs by heart \u2026 except I was a kid and didn\u2019t speak English, so I\u2019d sing in what we call \u201cyogurt\u201d\u2014phonetically.<\/p>\n

On the cover of the album, with her bandmates looking mysterious and glamorous, Cass stood laughing hysterically, with her mouth wide open. She was huge! She became a part of my personal folklore. I began to read about her, how she died young and that she\u2019d been a baroness. I was fascinated by the vaudeville of the Mamas and the Papas, with their affairs and breakups and broken marriages. She had an amazing life.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

How much did you fictionalize?<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

The basic elements are factual, but I connect the dots with my interpretation of her as a woman. I thought of how I would react in her place. For example, I knew she was overweight as a teenager, attended a posh high school, and pretended she was in a sorority. The part about her wearing a stolen pin is true\u2014it comes from a friend of hers. That\u2019s all I had, but I can imagine the mean girls, and I drew in the details to make her an actual person. There are several sources for her early life, with interviews of her family and friends. My main source was Dream a Little Dream of Me: The Life of \u201cMama\u201d Cass Elliot<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>by Eddi Fiegel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But, it wasn\u2019t like I was writing about Janis Joplin. There was room for discovery. There isn\u2019t much written about her, specifically, but she\u2019s a background character in so many of the major biographies of the folk-rock scene, and I took parts from each of their portrayals. They all say, We were at this party, everybody was wasted, and there was Mama Cass. She was everywhere.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

How did you research the book?<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

I shouldn\u2019t admit this, but I don\u2019t do much research, because I feel forced to use what I learn and it paralyzes my ability to create a character. I don\u2019t want to forget storytelling in the attempt to be accurate. I\u2019m not a historian, I\u2019m not a journalist. If facts add something to my story, then I welcome them onto the page, because nothing can be more incredible than the truth. But sometimes you have to let go of whole parts of someone\u2019s life to make a compelling narrative. For example, I simplified all the early changes in bands and band members to write a concise plot.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

You mean, you omit?<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

Without ruining the book\u2019s credibility, if the truth annoys me because it doesn\u2019t serve my story, I just \u2026 [whistles<\/em>]. I don\u2019t change facts, but I forget to tell certain facts.<\/p>\n

Before you start a book, you have to ask yourself, What do I want? Do I want an exhaustive record? Certainly not. If I want facts, I\u2019ll go to the Wikipedia entry. What I want is to love a character. What was essential to me was to bring Cass to life, for the reader to ache with her, laugh with her, to want to give her a hug when she\u2019s sad. Did it really happen in 1962 or 1961? I don\u2019t think readers care. Maybe that\u2019s cultural. I was first asked if the book was fiction or nonfiction here in America. In France, no one cares! I always took it for granted that we all agreed on a kind of gray zone. Even the subtitle\u2014Cass Elliott Before the Mamas and the Papas<\/em>. That\u2019s an American addition, and I think it spoils it. In the French version, you can open the book and imagine her as any little girl who grows up to become a singer, and only later do you realize she really existed and became famous.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

The book ends before Cass\u2019s death and before her child is born. Why did you choose this particular arc?<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

I wanted to end my story before she becomes a public figure. It ends while she\u2019s still Ellen Cohen inside, but as the world is beginning to know her, she knows that from then on she\u2019s going to be Mama Cass. Which is why I chose to open and close on the loop of the teenage fans. When you hear them talk about her, as a celebrity, again at the end of the book, you know that image she\u2019s been building is just a facade.<\/p>\n

Everyone always said Cass was so funny and bright. But I\u2019m friends with a lot of comedians, and they are the most depressed people I know.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

You\u2019re exploring the myth of her. Is that why we always see her through the eyes of other people?<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

She\u2019s never the narrator. That would be the end of the story. I wanted the reader to puzzle through her contradictions. We start by hearing from her family first, and then from people who loved her\u2014and people who hated her, which is why I wanted John Phillips to have a chapter. He\u2019s so annoyed by how much space her presence takes up.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that if you watch videos now, online, of her original TV appearances, the viewer comments say things like, That was the good old days when no one cared what you looked like to be a rock star, or, All the doors opened to her because of her voice. The implication is that with MTV, video culture, this wouldn\u2019t happen now. But she didn\u2019t have the right looks then either, in fact. In the sixties, labels offered her contracts if she lost weight, which was humiliating. She didn\u2019t do it\u2014she turned them down. She was brave. I don\u2019t know that I could have done what she did. I might have bent my spirit to follow my dream. To her, it was preposterous. I admire her.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

The way you draw Cass\u2019s body is joyous and full, a match for her personality. I did notice some of the clothes appeared anachronistic. They\u2019re more fitted. In the photos I\u2019ve seen of her from the period, she\u2019s wearing muumuus. What kind of reference material did you use for the period?<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

Drawing Cass is total drawing pleasure. For me, it\u2019s coquetry. Overall, I tried to keep the eras visually accurate\u2014the cars, the furniture, the hairstyles, and the clothes. This way the reader would sense visually when the story moves, say, ten years ahead. But I can\u2019t help the fact that, to put myself in her skin, to make her a believable teenager, I have to imagine Cass through a contemporary lens. Otherwise I\u2019m constrained by the limitations my prejudice about the past puts on my imagination. Instead of thinking about my hollow concept that \u201cgirls were not like that in the sixties,\u201d I remember myself at that age. From there, I can make Cass real.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that in the videos I saw of the Mamas and the Papas dressed up playing onstage, she was wearing tents.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Like choir gowns.<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

Beth Ditto was an inspiration for the character, and yes, that image looks contemporary. Cass also didn\u2019t put on as much makeup as I give her, and I\u2019m sure she wasn\u2019t as flirty as I draw her. But to me, it added to the empowerment. There\u2019s not a single moment in the book where you think she doubts her looks. Maybe my Cass doesn\u2019t care about the standards for fat women in the sixties. She knows she\u2019s sexy, so I wanted her to dress that way.<\/p>\n

I used friends of mine as body references, too, who embody grace and glamour and sexiness. I don\u2019t think I glamorize Cass, but I never hide her body. For instance, there is a scene where Cass is undressing after her dad\u2019s funeral, and it was very important to show her naked body as it is, because it\u2019s beautiful.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

What kind of response to those choices have you gotten?<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

It touched a nerve in France, where we are very focused on weight. A French journalist pissed me off so much. He said to me, I thought it was brave of you to draw Cass this way, because usually these women, you know, they don\u2019t take care of their appearance. At first I thought maybe I didn\u2019t understand. I asked what he meant by \u201cthese women.\u201d And he said, Oh, you know, these women<\/em>. And I knew exactly what he meant. I was furious.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

There are a lot of jokes made about Cass. Even in the group\u2019s songs, she was made a clownish figure.<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one\u2019s getting fat except Mama Cass.\u201d How could they have made her sing that, every night? But it was part of her persona, that she made fun of herself. She appeared on a skit comedy show, The Red Skelton<\/em> Show<\/em>, like a Saturday Night Live<\/em>. The gag was that a guy visited a matchmaking agency, and they switch the \u201cbeautiful\u201d girl with Cass. She\u2019s actually quite funny in it, but it\u2019s horrible. She accepted that, for a show-business career, it\u2019s what you did.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

The style of California Dreamin\u2019<\/em> is a departure from your graphic\u00a0novel, Exquisite Corpse<\/em>, which is drawn tight and polished. Here, the lines are looser\u2014it has an improvisational spirit.<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

Well, that was my first book, and it\u2019s been seven years between creating them, which is not obvious in the U.S. because they were released in translation closer together. But also, a difference is the tool\u2014I drew this whole book in pencil.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not inked at all?<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

Occasionally, for the cigarette smoke, I mixed a bit of ink and water to make a cloud, otherwise\u00a0it\u2019s only two different pencil nibs, about forty pencils\u2019 worth to make the whole book. And no eraser or ruler\u2014that was my rule. Never. Too bad if there is a fingerprint or a mistake, which is why none of my lines are straight. When I finished a panel and it was stained or a line didn\u2019t go the way I wanted, I could either start the whole page over again\u2014which I don\u2019t do because I\u2019m lazy\u2014or leave it. People don\u2019t even notice, but I can see all the blemishes.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

That variation seems purposeful. It creates a feeling of immediacy, that this life is happening on the page as you read it.<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost like a child drew it. I wondered if I should put an extra layer with Photoshop to make corrections, but then I realized it\u2019s the initial impression that\u2019s made when you open the book, of the story to be told. It\u2019s pencil and it\u2019s dirty, raw, as if published straight from my sketchbook.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Do you have a favorite song from the Mamas and the Papas?<\/p>\n

BAGIEU<\/p>\n

It depends on the day, but the one that will always make me cry is \u201cMidnight Voyage.\u201d Cass sings ad lib in the end, where she has a whole field to make her voice huge and emotional, and she\u2019s amazing. You could claim not to like their music\u2014 inconceivable to me\u2014even \u201cDream a Little Dream,\u201d but no one could be unmoved by \u201cMidnight Voyage.\u201d \u201cOn a midnight voyage, \/ One that has no ending; \/ And it\u2019s sending me \/ Right into my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meg Lemke is editor of <\/em>MUTHA Magazine<\/a> and chairs the comics and graphic-novel programming committee at the Brooklyn Book Festival<\/a>. She is on the\u00a0curatorial committee for the PEN World Voices Festival and\u00a0<\/span>a guest editor of PEN America\u2019s Illustrated PEN<\/a> series. You can find her online @meglemke<\/a> and more about her work and writing at meglemke.tumblr.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What was essential to me was to bring Cass to life, for the reader to ache with her, laugh with her, to want to give her a hug when she\u2019s 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