He did not know Dédé Fortin. He wasn’t even a fan of Roommates. Christian Quesnel, the magnificent designer of Mégantic: un train dans la nuit, nevertheless signs with Dédé a poetic biographical work which gives the impression of entering into the intimacy of the late singer of Les Colocs.
Since the death of André Dédé Fortin, there have been a few works that have attempted to understand or explain why he decided to kill himself in a particularly brutal way. Raymond Paquin, who was manager of Les Colocs, was the first. The writer Jean Barbe also took the plunge, but with a book that spoke more about him than its subject. The author and scriptwriter Philippe Meilleur has written a biography and the director Jean-Philippe Duval has made a very beautiful film entitled Dédé Through the Mists.
Christian Quesnel knew all this when, at the instigation of Lise Raymond, a great friend of Dédé Fortin who was the press attaché for Colocs, he began to take an interest in his subject. Except that he has not read any of the books mentioned above or even seen the film dedicated to the history of the singer and his group. “I wasn’t a fan of the Roommates,” he said simply. I’m more into death metal. »
He constructed his version of the story patiently, through meetings with friends and members of André Fortin’s family, by reading interviews he gave over the years and by having access to to date unpublished in the singer’s personal archives. “I started from facts, from writings, and I always tried to cross-check the information that was reported to me,” he says, comparing his work to a police investigation.
“I could have focused just on the last months of his life, from December 1999 to May 10, 2000,” explains the author. He did so much during that time! » The cartoonist instead chose to reconstruct the singer’s entire journey, from his childhood in Lac-Saint-Jean and the feeling of abandonment he felt at the birth of his sister, who stole his place as the youngest of the family, in their last moments.
He gives voice to some of those close to him, avoids any form of gossip or sensationalism, seeking first to understand the man. What he discovered? “A guy with more energy than normal,” he said, “first, who also put a lot of pressure on himself. Not just the one that belonged to him, but the one that belonged to others. It probably contributed to his death. »
He also speaks of a guy of great generosity, surrounded by people who, curiously, did not necessarily have much in common. Except their link with Dédé himself.
Dédé stands out from other works dedicated to the singer of Colocs by its poetic scope, which places this comic in a constellation close to the film by Jean-Philippe Duval, punctuated by animated scenes. Christian Quesnel, who works mainly in watercolor, sometimes panel by panel, has a unique style, eminently expressive and sensitive. He also has an extraordinary sense of staging.
Nothing here is flashy: his art unfolds in nuance, in delicacy, as much in the choice of colors as in the textures of paper. He also marks the presence of Dédé in his book by integrating letters or extracts from letters sometimes blended into characters or other images.
“I’m more into symbolism and the desire to make people feel things,” says the artist, who has put his hand on several visually stunning albums in recent years, including La Cité Oblique (Alto) and Mégantic : a train in the night (Ecosociety). The latter title also won a prize at the Angoulême comics festival, in France, in winter 2022.
Christian Quesnel, who also teaches at the Multidisciplinary School of Image at the University of Quebec in Outaouais, does not make traditional, formatted comics. And it is from this shattering of conventions that his work draws part of its evocative force. “I don’t like working in small boxes, I’m suffocating,” he admits. My comics will have to be big, big so that I feel free! »
