Doucet in Montreal Mirror

:: Posted by Bryan @ 6/23/2006 12:38:00 AM

Sometimes-comics-apostate Julie Doucet is interviewed in the Montreal Mirror on her current non-comics work and her attitude towards her comics past:

Montreal Mirror: Plotte Twists

M: Do you ever miss making comics?

JD: Well... no, not really (laughs).

M: You sound happy about your decision to move on.

JD: Oh my god, yes. I'm very happy about it. It took me quite a long time to figure out why and I'm not sure I even have because I feel my reaction is out of proportion. I really don't want to hear about comics anymore, I don't want to read them. And it's not really about the medium anymore, but the crowd.

M: What do you mean by that?

JD: It's really a guy's world, and with comic nerds -- in general anyway--all they talk about is comics. They're not really interested in anything else and just not that open to things. Also I think it had a lot to do with relationships I had --romantic ones-- that were very difficult for me. My only friends at the time were men and a lot of the men had a problem with me being more successful than they were.

M: Have you made any female friends over the years?

JD: (laughs) All my friends now are women. All of them.

Labels: Quebec

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3 Comments:

 max said...

Just from the quote…..without reading the rest of the article i'd say this sounds much like the same thread of thought she has expressed in the past, or an evolution of it anyway. Julie seems to be the lost love of the Montreal/ NY/ Seattle commix scenes at times. Those communities talk about her frequently as though she were a current vital part of the scene, but in fact she moved on to other things a long time ago now. still part of the art scene here in Montreal but seldom scene at anything to do with comics. and I’ve never read or hared an interview with her where she had anything good to say to the same question she keeps getting: a continuing variation of the jilted lovers 'why did you stop loving me?'....do you miss making comics? will you ever make them anymore? why did you stop?

ok....reading it now...

"You know, with success in comics it’s like you’ve become a priest and you just cannot quit. That’s pretty much it."

haha, exactly.

See, I’m physic, it’s kind of justified to talk about her commix work, as the purpose of the piece is about the new book, but really they don’t even really talk about the book OR take the opportunity to explore where she’s gone since moving on from the form in her work in any real depth, but rather focuses on the past, & what she’s left behind, why and who.

Her answer is showing the benefit of time; it’s getting more eloquent and clear. But it’s to bad they don’t talk more about her current work here. I have to say, I find the Mirror to be quite rapped up in a backward looking and at times overly nostalgic [though also cynical] hipsters view of this cities cultural history. With commix they are very much aware of and a part of the circuit of creators that came to prominence in the mid 80’s to mid 90’s. Much the same crowd that was focused on in the locally controversial TCJ feature. As much as they are due respect, I wonder where the attention to the present is? I meet young artists exploring commix all the time now, girls even! Goshh…..and not all have gotten their work quite so tied up with their personal lives though that will always be a put fall…….but to the point…..why are we not seeing anything in the local weeklies about them?
Because few of them know or wish to play the PR game? And the media here has become very lazy, preferring it seems to tread the path worn true rather than dig for new?

Yawn….

Good to hear Julie has found some happy creative space to occupy, but I’d much rather read about what form that’s taken in some real depth than hear the same old trope about how there’s no money in commix, or the decidedly bad attitude many of the disgruntled creative personalities she’s know that partake in the form. How about talking about what she likes and wants for a change, rather than what she doesn’t and doesn’t again.

Friday, June 23, 2006 8:50:00 PM EDT  

 Bobby.N said...

when Julie says:
"I really don’t want to hear about comics anymore, I don’t want to read them. And it’s not really about the medium anymore, but the crowd....It’s really a guy’s world, and with comic nerds... all they talk about is comics. They’re not really interested in anything else and just not that open to things."

It sounds like she never had a love for the medium, but (accidently?) found it a convenient way of expressing her feelings (and making money). Denigrating those that loved the medium though, says more about her than 'them' I think.

And then she says:
"Also I think it had a lot to do with relationships I had—romantic ones—that were very difficult for me. My only friends at the time were men and a lot of the men had a problem with me being more successful than they were.

It's seems more about her having become famous (read: attention) for a job she resented, but liked the rewards it afforded her... so she continued doing it for the sake of the rewards. She talks negatively about it now, because she's gone onto a different stage in her life.

If she doesn't like comics - fine.... but she shouldn't be taking interviews based on her success in comics, or admitting she still makes her money from comics - if, as she says, "I really don’t want to hear about comics anymore.

Its a little disingenuous.

Its analogous to a drug dealer professing his contempt for drugs, while he's still making money from it.

Bobby.N

Thursday, August 9, 2007 9:43:00 PM EDT  

 max said...

Yeah I’d tend to agree. I was just talking about this with my partner Cassandra.

You know to be honest I’ve come to find Julie’s attitude, originally the one in her books directed at men, and at this point towards comics and men via them – incredibly negative and stereotypical. And a big put off.

It’s not just her interviews, In her books she gives over a lot of time, in the later stories especially, to complaining about the dumb ass guys she ends up with over and over but never seems to let on that she’s ever considered that they are the ones she’s chosen for herself. No I don’t think it’s all her fault they are asses, but I know more than a few women who make a habit of bad relationships and I know some who’ve learned how not to get into that mess so often. Heck I had my crazy ex’s too, the idea is you learn from them, how to work shit out and who’s just too messed up to deal with yet. Yah I know a lot of people never get it totally right but her work never hints that I can recall at her being aware of her roll in things when it comes to men. The message is mostly just they suck. Simplistic BS.

And in so far as is depicted in her comics, she never bothers to say anything to them about their behaviour. Instead she sneaks away from them when they are not at home on thanksgiving! I remember being a bit put off by that myself when I read Purty Plote 12, but it really was driven home when my girlfriend was reading her books – her perspective on Julie’s work was very validating, she pointed out before we ever talked about what I thought of her work that it seemed like everything is someone else’s problem in her books, something being done to her. Seldom her fault or her doing in her stories.

Yet with all that anger and distrust, she’s really pretty mean to her men in her comics in the end, I’d probably be shitty to someone if they treaded me like she depicts herself. If it’s anything like how she delt with the real guys in her life…And then the guys she’s with? Please, if they were as bad as she makes out, what was she thinking in the first place?

And saying all they want to talk about is comics, please. If it’s what you have in common and like to do with your time it’s pretty normal to spend a lot of time on that, I talk art in the general with my partner all the time, comics and all of it. But if you don’t want to talk about that change the subject, and if your partner isn’t into that, then either accept that that’s their thing or move on. Filmmakers talk about Cinema incessantly, painters about art, musicians about music. Yah, so?

So yes one might get the idea she was not such a big comics person but I wonder if it’s just whom she was talking to and how she dealt with them.

In the end it’s not at all about men, The Montreal Comix art scene was and is insufferably negative and antagonistic towards one another - as Julie is demonstrating herself in this article – everyone gossips so hating that is not a stretch, but frankly the women are JUST as bad as the guys here, if not worse –no one holds their council except to each others faces :P

The ladies tend towards being more angry in my exp, dismissive, and passive aggressive than the men I find, which is saying something. But a lot of them are just as bad as many of the guys. And it does at times seem like that’s the norm. One on one people can be great but in groups it’s major clique time.

But it’s the cranky 30+ crowd mostly I think, the ones who has crazy ideas of being art stars here in the 80’s and used comix mostly for the counterculture cache rather than really being into long form sequential storytelling. Julie showed a lot of them up and yeah she got a lot of attention too, but why she’s spent so much energy worrying about what they think is beyond me. And what does their crappy tude have to do with comics? That’s coincidental, not causal or directly related.

In the end it just sounds like an excuse to complain about men again, and diss comix.

I never felt very included myself when I moved here, and from the things I picked up on the edges, I didn’t want to be after a while. The Anglo crowd is a bit less catty, but there is a tendency to make up for that with mopy alcoholic depression at times. But if you really want to know why the Montreal comic crowd is so negative, study up on your Quebec culture for the last 80 years, has more to do with it. And as for the broader underground comics scenes, it’s way to mixed a bag for her stereotypes in my experience, and getting a lot more diverse as far as gender representation goes.

I hear she’s having a lot more fun as a print maker and exhibiting artist. I’ll be interested in seeing what she does with that in the future but I’ll say it again, I think it’s way past due that the Canadian press dethrones her as our raining female Indy comics queen and gets on with finding others to talk about for a change. I meet so many of them now, I’m sure more than a few are up for the gig. Off the top I can think of two I’d vote for the job, Hope Larson and Jillian Tamaki both got my vote any day.

In fact I think I’ll make that something to keep my eye’s open for at TCAF.

Thursday, August 9, 2007 11:58:00 PM EDT  

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