The Marsouines

« In 1996, I had just bought an old building farm more or less in ruins (I’d better say absolutely in ruins) in Limousin with Mad. It was a solar place full of wind, rain and stars. An owl were living in my attic, I had noticed that a lérot used to watch me sleep, and during the winter we could follow a marten’s tracks in the snow...
We were shivering in front of the fire place, we were trying to renovate the houses and Mad was raising up a bio garden in which she wanted to cultivate old varieties of vegetables. A splendid living place, but completely lonely and far away from everything/one.
One day, she came to my home, put some sheets of paper on my desk, and said « They are the characters, write a comics with them ». I didn’t know anything about comics, but she convinced me, and little by little I began to give her enough to make a board or two, thus we built the first volume which we published in 1997, then the second one in 1998. Mad wasn’t satisfied by her drawings and there had been no third volume. Anyway, one of her drawers is filled with boards which could give birth to a new album...
In fact our place was very much alive with these « virtual » characters and Chantebelette (the Marsouine’s village) is a community as we could dream... However we relied a lot on reality, for example, the debate on sexuality retranscribed in the second volume was held in the CEL (an association of Marseille), I was there, and I had taken notes... So we wanted both to work on what lesbian imaginary is and also to represent us sociologically (we find among the Marsouines different categories of lesbians, among whom radical lesbians as Zaralk or Psapfa, feminist as Diaf' or homosexuals as Ionessa or Ellk, and Kimi would be queer.
The starting point of our work is the fact that Mad was fed up of the violence and the sexism she used to find in the comics that she was reading. She wanted to create positive images in our lesbians imaginary. »
Arbrelune (Françoise Leclère).

The third album of Marsouines is in progress.

The characters : Thélia is a shamane or a witch, or an earth priestess, (as we want according to our own imaginary), she knows plants, and she lives in and with the magic of the world. There is a scene where she is molested by hunters in the woods, and she transformes herself into a gorgon. It is obviously a fantasy but it’s also a way of knowing our internal power, our capacities of resistance, though they know how to reappropriate their myths (gorgon and the like)… Yomà is Thélia’s lover, she cultivates a bio garden and worries on how to feed all the community, by giving her vegetables. Thélia and Yomà represent a loving duet which « is going on well ». They know how to speak, take care of each other, they are trusty (...)

On the contrary Kimi and Ellk make a couple where the partners, although in love, are always edgy, do not understand each other. They have a natural clumsiness, are always between conflict and reconciliation. Ellk  works in a shoe shop, with a macho boss, she spends awful days there, which make her irritable. She is a possessive and jealous, hyperemotional person. She tries to make her relation coincide with her ideal vision of love, (which is very conventional). Kimi  Kimi is more independent, she shocks her lover by her demands or her resistances, her sexual practices, her conception of love (she doesn’t accept the loving ideology).

Tixi, Diaf ' and Thoriss play in a music band, named « les perverses polymorphes », polymorphic perverts.

Tixi is black, She’s the percussionist. In fact, she is the one who, with Diaf’s complicity (in the imaginary reality), draws the comics by describing life and intrigues of each one in Chantebelette.

Diaf' is the singer, she is very shy, knows the meaning of the word” pudor”. She is a mechanic and repairs everybody’s cars. (Chantebelette is a community where knowledges are shared)

Thoriss is the guitarist. She has a training of classical music, and she gives cello’s lessons. She wonders about lesbianism, about the lesbian culture which she discovers little by little by questioning the others and by collecting their opinions and their knowledge.


Zaralk has a look of pirate, (symbol of nonconformism or rebellion. she is an intellectual, she knows very well the lesbian culture. She works in the stables of a riding school.

Psapfa is also a specialist of the lesbian culture, in which she participates by her linguistic works. Her position on the emotional plan is a refusal absolved from the couple. She multiplies her relationships without creating loving links.

Ionessa represents happiness, she does not seem to worry, is always in a good mood. In the first volume she decided to knit a pullover, she obviously doesn’t know and will never know how to handle the needle and everybody is perplexed around her, laughs friendly at her, while she applies, remains concentrated on the effort without wondering about the result... Her goat, Babette, puts the mess almost everywhere.

Arbrelune and Babette, Ionessa’s goat.

Yomà’s bio garden scarecrow… (You can see it in one of the following boards)

A few boards

Until today, Les Marsouines are in french, but the third volume may be in english too...

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