An Artist’s Look at Margaux Motin

I would have loved to be an ethnologist

There was a time when I was building a small design project called Pepper Jones.

In my mind, Pepper was a woman in her mid-thirties - effortlessly Parisian. She moved through the world with curiosity and style, collecting inspiration as she travelled. Her designs were shaped by what she noticed, what she loved, and what she chose to keep.

When I was trying to find her voice - visually, emotionally - I came across the work of Margaux Motin.

And something clicked.

Motin’s line is loose, confident, and a little unpredictable. There’s a casual elegance to it - but also something sharp underneath. Her drawings feel immediate, almost like thoughts captured before they disappear.

I would have loved to be an ethnologist is the first volume in a trilogy that sits somewhere between comic, diary, and observation.

It doesn’t unfold like a traditional story.

Sometimes a moment is held in a single image.

Sometimes it stretches across multiple pages.

The rhythm is entirely its own.

What she captures is everyday life — her relationships, her daughter, her friendships, the small irritations and joys that shape a day. There’s humour, often self-deprecating, sometimes biting.

And that’s where it becomes interesting.

Because the connection to the character isn’t always straightforward.

There are moments where the voice feels raw, even abrasive - where the humour leans into something sharper than expected. For some readers, that honesty is the point. For others, it creates a slight distance.

I found myself somewhere in between.

What stayed with me wasn’t the narrative as much as the way it was told.

The looseness of the drawings.

The willingness to let a moment sit without explanation.

The sense that not everything needed to resolve cleanly.

There’s confidence in that.

And for me, working on something like Pepper Jones at the time, it opened up a way of thinking:

That a character can be shaped as much by gesture as by story.

That tone can live in the line itself.

That observation - quiet, specific, slightly off-centre - can carry a whole world.

Motin’s work also lives beyond the page. Her background in blogging and sharing drawings online brings a kind of immediacy to the work - as if the boundary between life and storytelling is intentionally thin.

That energy carries into the book.

It feels collected, but not contained.

This is a graphic novel that invites a particular kind of reading.

Not plot-driven.

Not always comfortable.

But visually engaging, and often very funny in unexpected ways.

It’s the kind of work that reminds you:

Not every story needs to be shaped the same way.

And not every character needs to be easy to hold.

Have you read I would have loved to be an ethnologist?

Or followed Margaux Motin’s work over the years?

I’d be curious how it landed for you.

Annellie