Hubert

This blog post has some spoilers to Miss Don't Touch Me the comic book. And it's also not that funny, because my favourite author died and there's nothing funny about that.

Hubert died in 2020. According to the French Wikipedia page, he ended his life. In 2020, it was early into the pandemic, and I remember the news being extremely sudden and feeling completely shocked. They had not revealed the reason for his death at the time, so I kept wondering what the hell happened. I suppose, it is sort of a closure to finally know the reason. I hope he rests in peace. But, I can't help but feel the whole world is such bullshit!

Truth be told, I'd always been a person averse to the bleakness of the world. Whenever there was bleak, I looked away. Miss Don't Touch Me, the comic book written and coloured by Hubert, lured me in with its innocent-looking cover. The comic is drawn by French artist duo Kerascoët in a style frequently associated with whimsy and cuteness. They use pastel colours and dainty lines, which I associate with cute little guys in children's books. I was taken aback when I read about the murder in the story, and I was appalled by the time it was finished. Because no loose ends were tied, no story lines were resolved, the bad guys roam free and the good guys are either dead, lost, or in a state of insanity. I was pretty upset. What is this? What am I supposed to do with this feeling now?

It took me some time to realize that in real life, sometimes the bad guys do keep on living, and the good guys do get sad endings. Because I have a five year old's brain in some ways, I have a hard time accepting this. And yet, it continues to be true. And I continue to not know how to accept it.

Maybe that's why find myself keep going back to Miss Don't Touch Me again and again. To sum it up, it is about a woman in 1930s France, her sister was murdered so she joins a brothel to uncover the truth. I think anyone who enjoys mysteries and David Lynch and maybe just, depressing and beautiful things blended together would find it interesting.

It feels wrong to say that Miss Don't Touch Me is one of my favourite stories, but without Hubert, I would've never re-watched all the seasons of Twin Peaks. I was still holding a grudge against David Lynch for killing my favourite bird. (David Lynch died, too, sadly. But can I just mourn one person at a time, okay Universe?) Some time after finishing Miss Don't Touch Me, I had a new found appreciation for having multiple feelings at once, I'd sought it out again, and now I was able to sit and enjoy it. It's become one of my favourite series. I might not have given The Shining a chance either, due to being easily scared and not "into" a mad man running around with an axe. But after reading about a brothel with people that have a fetish for torturing girls, I felt that maybe it was a tinge more okay to see something unresolved. And I loved The Shining.

I didn't know Hubert was depressed, I didn't know him at all really, but sometimes weirdly, it felt like I did know him. Can you ever really know someone? Do people's written word tell us who they really are? I don't know. But I do know that maybe, it's good to look at the bleak things every once in a while, and even appreciate the beauty in it. I still hate that he died and I hate that living was so painful for him. Hubert, thank you for writing stuff, I hope you are resting in peace.