Pascin

by Joann Sfar
translated by Ana Millán

How come I never heard of Julius Mordecai Pincas, aka Jules Pascin (1885—1930), the “Prince of Montparnasse”, before? Nor of Chaim Soutine, for that matter. One day, going out of the library, I took a book from the shelf (of the new or recently retuned items), randomly opened it and saw this (except it was in Spanish):

Which is surprising on itself, given that almost every other page shows its protagonist accompanied by ladies in varying degrees of nudity, the painter’s favourite subject.

When I went to see Lulu femme nue in Monopol last week, I had the book with me. There was still about ten minutes until the start of the movie, so I just sat there browsing it. Three French-speaking ladies made their way to the row before me. One of them turned around and, with charming directness, addressed her companions: “Regardez, Pascin!” — luckily, they ignored that, it wouldn’t be very comfortable if all of them indeed started looking. From which I conclude that the comic must be famous in France.

I would have come across the name of Pascin if I ever read A Moveable Feast, which I didn’t. As it happened, I first learned about Pascin meeting Hemingway in Paris from Sfar’s comic (pp. 181—182), then I found a blog post describing this very encounter (from where I borrowed two pages reproduced below), and then I finally moved on to Hemingway’s own account. I find Sfar’s version funnier, not to mention shorter.

Another celebrity encounter, between Pascin and Claude McKay, takes place on pp. 163—165, and the dialogue, at least in the Spanish version (I’m sure it’s the same in the original French edition), goes on in English. (During this dialogue, Pascin teaches McKay to curse in Yiddish.) I bet the whole thing loses something in English translation.

The author takes care to note that the events decribed in the comic are fictitious and it is not the biography of real Julius Pincas. The book consists of the seven episodes originally published between 1997 and 1999 in the comic magazine Lapin. I understand that they appear in the book in order of publication and, as such, indeed do not present any continuous narrative. But who cares. I’d like to see the follow-up.