Comicalités (Apr 2013)
La série Paul de Michel Rabagliati : récits d’espaces et de temps
Abstract
By establishing such close links between the literary narrative and the illustrated narrative, the bande dessinée seems to be a very particular médium that places the time of our lives within space. Between 1999 and 2011, Michel Rabagliati, a Quebec cartoonist, devotes six comic books to the life of Paul, his diegetic twin. These comic books, combining short stories and graphic novels, relate slices of Paul’s life, from age 10 to his adult life. In the normal course of anticipating an event to reliving an event, the expression of the narrator’s inner life, is systematically accompanied by a reconstitution of the places he has been and the life he’s led, an expression of his outer life. Therefore, Temporality and Spatiality seem to combine to form character and even his existence. Additionally, the relationships that Paul has with his past and the spaces of his past are equally markers that echo the readers’ own life, calling on inter-textuality and inter-iconicity.
