Many remember an episode from childhood in which they mythologized a parent. For Zerocalcare it’s when his father defeated Mer Man, the blue frog-man from the «Masters of the Universe», a cult animated series from the 1980s. Of course, it’s a fantasy, but in his new graphic novel «When you die it stays with me» (Bao) is the starting point to clarify, with irony and tenderness, the relationship with the father figure, also thanks to a trip together in the Dolomites of Veneto, decades later, on the twentieth-century trail of his family.
First in the book rankings with thirty thousand copies sold in three weeksthe volume is presented on May 25th at the Piccolo Teatro Strehler within the cycle «Reading around – BookCity all year round» (program on: laletturaintorno.bookcitymilano.it) running until Monday 27th with 60 meetings. With the author, in a live reading of the comic, there will be Neri Marcorè with whom he created the audiobook for the Storytel platform. For the occasion, we asked some questions to Zerocalcare.
You defined the graphic novel as «a stream of consciousness», but in this stream what were the first images?
«Before starting it, I only had two clear images in my head. One was about my father’s fight with Mer Man, because I had replayed it in my head so many times when I was little. The other was the image of the holiday in Ostuni at seven years old with my father, the first when separated, during Italia 90. Both evoked the atmospheres that I wanted to bring into the book.”
In the book she touches on both the relationship between her and her father and that between several generations over a century. How did you decide it was time to enter such a personal sphere?
«It happened after I saw “Aftersun” at the cinema, a film about the last summer a teenager spends with her father. She stirred some things in me and I realized it was a theme I wanted to explore. I had never dealt with it, neither in comics nor in my life.”
In one table we read: «Drawing blocks life». At forty, is Michele Reich moving away from the Zerocalcare character?
«With my character there is a sort of symbiosis so much so that I don’t understand which of the two is chasing the other. In the sense, I don’t understand if it is Michele who is chasing Zerocalcare or vice versa. It’s a continuous comparison also because by drawing it dozens of times a day I constantly find myself measuring the distance between that avatar and the real me. In reality it is complicated and it is not a resolved relationship.”
You and Neri Marcorè made an audiobook from the graphic novel. How do you tell a comic in words?
«My comics are very verbose and written, the images create atmosphere, but a lot of the story is carried forward by the words. It wasn’t difficult, every now and then we described what happens in the panels, but the bulk of the comic remained unchanged.”
What did your father tell you about the book?
«The first few days he told me practically nothing. Then over time, even without being explicit, he made it go well!”.
Where and when
Zerocalcare presents the graphic novel «When you die it stays with me» (Bao) tomorrow morning at 11 at the Piccolo Teatro Strehler (Largo Greppi 1, tel. 02.21.12.61.16 free entry) With the author The author Neri Marcorè speaks
The meeting is part of the «Reading around – BookCity all year round» cycle, a cultural inclusion project created with the Cariplo Foundation, ongoing until Monday 27th.
