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Julie Doucet

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Julie Doucet
Born(1965-12-31)December 31, 1965(age 58)
Montreal,Quebec,Canada
Area(s)Cartoonist,Artist
Notable works
Dirty Plotte
My New York Diary
AwardsHarvey Awardfor "Best New Talent" (1991)
Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême(2022)
JulieDoucet.net

Julie Doucet(born December 31, 1965)[1]is a Canadianundergroundcartoonist and artist, best known for her autobiographical works such asDirty PlotteandMy New York Diary.Her work is concerned with such topics as "sex, violence,menstruationandmale/female issues."[2]

Biography

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Early career

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Doucet was born inMontreal,Quebec.She was educated first at an all-girlsCatholic school,then studied fine arts atCégep du Vieux Montréal(a junior college) and afterward at theUniversité du Québec à Montréal.[1]Her university degree was inprinting arts.[1]She began cartooning in 1987. She was published in small-press comics and self-published her own comic calledDirty Plotte.[3]She used the photocopiedzineto record "her day to day life, her dreams, angsts, [and] fantasies."[1]It was only when she was published inWeirdo,[4]Robert Crumb's magazine, that she began to attract critical attention.[2]

Comic works

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Doucet began being published byDrawn & Quarterlyin January 1991 in a regular-sized comic series also namedDirty Plotte.[5]Shortly thereafter, she moved toNew York.Although she moved toSeattlethe following year, her experiences inNew Yorkformed the basis of the critically acclaimedMy New York Diary(many stories of which were taken fromDirty Plotte). She moved from Seattle toBerlinin 1995, before finally returning to Montreal in 1998.[1]While inBerlin,she had a book namedCiboire de crisspublished byL'Associationin Paris, her first book in French.[1]Once back in Montreal, she released the twelfth and final issue ofDirty Plottebefore beginning a brief hiatus from comics.

She returned to the field in 2000 withThe Madame Paul Affair,a slice-of-life look at contemporary Montreal which was originally serialized inIci-Montreal,a local alternative weekly. At the same time, she was branching out into more experimental territory, culminating with the 2001 release ofLong Time Relationship,a collection of prints and engravings. In 2004, Doucet also published in French an illustrated diary (Journal) chronicling about a year of her life and, in 2006, anautobiographymade from acollageof words cut from magazines and newspapers (J comme Je). Also in spring of 2006 she had her first solo print show, nameden souvenir du Melek,at the galerie B-312 in Montreal.[6]In December 2007, Drawn and Quarterly published365 Days: A Diary by Julie Doucet,in which she chronicled her life for a year, starting in late 2002.[7]

Post-comic works

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She remained a fixture in the Montreal arts community, but in an interview in the June 22, 2006, edition of theMontreal Mirror,she declared that she had retired from long-form comics.[8]

She also said "...it's quite a lot of work, and not that much money. I went to a newspaper to propose a comic strip because I only had to draw a small page and it would be out the next week. For once it was regular pay and good money."[8]

I quit comics because I got completely sick of it. I was drawing comics all the time and didn't have the time or energy to do anything else. That got to me in the end. I never made enough money from comics to be able to take a break and do something else. Now I just can't stand comics.[9]

...I wish my work would be recognized by a larger crowd of people as more art than be stuck with the cartoonist label for the rest of my life. That's what's killing me about a lot of those comics guys.Dan Clowesis mostly a writer, a great artist, and has tried different things, But a lot of those guys, their drawing style never changes—the content neither—and it seems it never will. I just don't understand that, how you can spend fifty years of your artist life doing the same thing over and over again.[9]

She had a book of poetry published byL'Oie de Cravanin 2006,À l’école de l’amour.[10]Her post-comics artwork consists oflinocuts,collage, andpapier-mâchésculptures.[11]In 2007, Doucet designed the cover for thePenguin ClassicsDeluxe Edition ofLouisa May Alcott'sLittle Women.[12]

Return to comics

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In April 2022, Doucet returned to making comics withTime Zone J,published by Drawn and Quarterly. As she said about making the new comic:

"I tried to tell it in cutout words, I tried to set it in the past — it happened in the '80s, but I tried to set it in the 1800s — I tried to type it on a typing machine, I tried to make a movie.... But nothing really worked."[3]

Time Zone Jis notable for its unusual format, which is designed to be read from the bottom of each page to the top.[13]

Awards and honours

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In 1991,Dirty Plottewas nominated for best new series and Doucet won theHarvey Awardfor "Best New Talent".[14][15]In 1999, whenThe Comics Journalmade a list of the top 100 comics of all time, she was on several of the short-lists andDirty Plotteranked 96th.[16]In 2000, her bookMy New York Diarywon theFirecracker Awardfor best graphic novel.[17]Doucet's book365 Days: A Diarywas nominated for best book award at the 2009Doug Wright Awards.[18]In 2019, Doucet'sDirty Plottecollection was nominated for theSPX Ignatz awardfor outstanding collection.[19]

In March 2022, she was awarded theGrand Prix de la ville d'Angoulêmeas a lifetime achievement.[20]She is only the third woman to win the award.[3]

Bibliography

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  • Dirty Plotte(minicomic) (12 issues, 1988-1989[21]
  • Dirty Plotte(12 issues,Drawn and Quarterly,Jan. 1991–Aug. 1998)
  • Lift Your Leg, My Fish is Dead!(Drawn and Quarterly, 1993)ISBN978-0969670131
  • My Most Secret Desire(Drawn and Quarterly, 1995)ISBN9781896597027
  • My New York Diary(Drawn and Quarterly, May 1999)ISBN978-1896597225
  • The Madame Paul Affair(Drawn and Quarterly, 2000)ISBN978-1896597348— also published in French (L'Association) and Spanish (Inrevés Edicions)
  • Long Time Relationship(Drawn and Quarterly, 2001)ISBN978-1896597478
  • (with Benoît Chaput)Melek(2002)
  • Ciboire de crissL'Association, 2004)ISBN978-2909020631
  • Journal(L'Association, 2004)ISBN978-2844141514
  • J comme Je: Essais d'autobiographie(Seuil French, 2006)ISBN978-2020639361
  • Elle Humour(Gingko Press, 2006)ISBN978-1584232469
  • Je suis un K(2006)
  • 365 Days: A Diary by Julie Doucet(Drawn and Quarterly, 2007)ISBN978-1897299159
  • À l'école de l'amour(L'Oie de Cravan,2007)ISBN978-2922399462
  • (withMichel Gondry)My New New York Diary(PictureBox,2010)ISBN978-0984589203
  • Dirty Plotte: The Complete Julie Doucet(Drawn and Quarterly, 2018)ISBN978-1770463233
  • Time Zone J(Drawn and Quarterly, 2022)ISBN978-1770464988
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Doucet's name appears in the lyrics of theLe Tigresong "Hot Topic."[22]

See also

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References

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  1. ^abcdefJulie Doucet's biography at her websiteArchived2009-08-05 at theWayback Machine
  2. ^abShainblum, Mark:"Canada's Alternative Comic Creators Stand Up For Themselves",Onset,vol. 1, #4, p. 25.
  3. ^abcTraps, Yevgeniya (April 15, 2022)."It's Julie Doucet's World: After a two-decade break, the comic artist returns with 'Time Zone J,' a graphic autopsy of youthful passion from the vantage point of a middle-aged woman".New York Times.
  4. ^Weirdo#26(Fall 1989), Grand Comics Database.
  5. ^Dirty Plotte(Drawn & Quarterly) at the GCD
  6. ^Art show introduction at galerie B-312 by Jean-Emile VerdierArchived2011-07-06 at theWayback Machine
  7. ^Bethel, Brian (25 March 2008)."365 Days: A Diary by Julie Doucet".Pop Matters.Retrieved30 November2010.
  8. ^abInterview in the Montreal Mirror, June 22, 2006ArchivedAugust 10, 2008, at theWayback Machine
  9. ^abNadel, Dan. "A Good Life: The Julie Doucet Interview,"The Drama#7 (2006).
  10. ^Interview with Doucet,The WalrusArchived2008-05-13 at theWayback Machine
  11. ^Biography at Drawn & Quarterly
  12. ^"Little Women at Penguin".Archived fromthe originalon 2012-03-20.Retrieved2009-03-25.
  13. ^Yates, Lane."Time, Zone, J: Temporalities of Memory in Julie Doucet's New Comic,"The Comics Journal(June 29, 2022).
  14. ^"Harvey Award Winners 1991".Harvey Awards website.Archived fromthe originalon 2010-11-09.
  15. ^"1991 Harvey Awards list".Comic Book Awards Almanac.Hahn Library.
  16. ^Hick, Darren (15 February 1999)."A Glimpse Behind the Curtain: Nominations for the Journal's Top 100".The Comics Journal.Archived fromthe originalon Jul 24, 2007.
  17. ^"Firecracker Alternative Book Awards".ReadersRead.com.Archived fromthe originalon Mar 4, 2009.
  18. ^CBC on the 2008 Doug Wright Awards
  19. ^Puc, Samantha (2019-08-22)."SPX announces 2019 Ignatz Awards nominees".The Beat.Retrieved2021-03-01.
  20. ^Potet, Frédéric (2022-03-16)."Julie Doucet, un Grand Prix d'Angoulême" féministe jusqu'au bout des ongles "et underground".Le Monde.Retrieved2022-03-16.
  21. ^Dirty Plotte mini-comics at the GCD
  22. ^Oler, Tammy (October 31, 2019)."57 Champions of Queer Feminism, All Name-Dropped in One Impossibly Catchy Song".Slate Magazine.
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