Rich Mintz  

Man do I love me some Julie Doucet. When I was in Providence I picked up a copy of Doucet’s My New York Diary (available from the publisher, or from Amazon, or remaindered from the excellent graphic-novel curators-and-purveyors Symposium Books in Providence, where I got mine). It’s the story of her young adulthood, spent mostly in Washington Heights.

Doucet, a Montrealer, has that characteristic lack of self-consciousness that makes Montreal (the city, the culture, the people) so appealing to those of us in New York, where nobody can put on a pair of socks, or even sneeze, without worrying about what other people will think.

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Julie Doucet talk in autobiographical-cartoon form about her pimples, slovenliness, alcohol problem, private parts, lady problems, and many other things-not-normally-spoken-of in far more detail than those of any living woman.

Buy, devour, enjoy.

Symposium Books delivered my order in five days, so now I have a ton of new graphic novels and plain-old reproduced comic books to enjoy. I’m starting with Julie Doucet, because I like the stuff of hers I already own….

…but I had no idea she was so … you know, graphic. Doucet’s subject matter in this book is more freewheeling with regard to sex, sexuality, gender, fear, and the unconscious than you normally see even among “experimental” cartoonists. In virtually every panel (indeed, in everything of hers I’ve ever seen), she draws herself, or some alternate version of herself, and in very few of them do things seem to be going well for her.

Below I’ve provided links to three panels which, believe it or not, are among the three least edgy panels in the book. Don’t click if you’re not a fan of the names of body parts, anthropomorphized plucked chickens, or the F word. (I was careful! Because I’m a nice guy, Julie is fully clothed in all these, and I spared you “male Julie copulating with female Julie,” “body part, yes the one you’re thinking of, severed by a jackknife,” and so forth.)

Julie in the kitchen after a long night (warning: contains expletives you can’t say on TV)

Julie and her woodland friends (warning: contains creepy-looking beaver-type creature with a coffee pot)

Julie concerned about her anatomy (warning: refers to a body part that rhymes with “Regina”)

All duplicated without permission, and deliberately (yeah, right) blurry so that you’ll run out and buy buy buy and make Julie Doucet a rich woman. Here’s a link to all the Julie Doucet you can possibly want to see in one place.

I was chatting briefly online with my friend “Dionysus” and the subject of graphic novels happened to come up (I think I brought up Paul). He suggested that I check out the authors Joe Matt and Seth, and I found their books remaindered at Symposium (and remembered seeing them in the store when I was in Providence). The upshot: I spent $70 on seven books, including theirs and a couple of Julie Doucet’s and this interesting-looking thing which is remaindered at $2.98. So thanks, Dionysus!