First Second has announced plans to publish Pénélope Bagieu's California Dreamin': Cass Elliott Before The Mamas & the Papas, a biography of the singer widely known as Mama Cass.

Elliott was a member of several groups before The Mamas & the Papas, and she struggled to make a career as a singer, once losing a part to Barbara Streisand.

Elliott had an amazing voice, but she was also very overweight, which hampered her career and often made her an object of cruel jokes — including the rumor that she died by choking on a ham sandwich (in fact, she died of heart failure). In the preview below, Bagieu draws her as beautiful and graceful; it will be interesting to see a modern take on this talented singer and her life.

Bagieu is also the creator of Exquisite Corpse, published last year by First Second last year. It's a comic story about a young woman involved with a washed-up writer whom everyone thinks is dead. Both books were published first in French.