Wild Imagination: a Conversation with Julie Doucet

What initially drew you to alternative comics and self-publishing?

When I was an art student, my school offered a course about comics for the first time. That class was where I met my first cartoonist friends; through them, I was introduced to the world of fanzines, which seemed extremely exciting to me, because it was a way of being able to show one’s work.

I wasn’t happy in art school. Except for the printmaking courses, which I enjoyed, I felt totally out of place. The big art star at the time was Joseph Beuys, and the main comment I got was, “You should make children’s books,” because what I was doing was figurative and, surely, because I was a woman. Don’t get me wrong, I like Beuys’s art, but at the time I felt so misunderstood.

Eventually I quit art school. By then I had met quite a lot of the people in the comics world, had drawn a few comics myself, and began to have a bit of a reputation. I had been published in many different fanzines, but they were group projects and were coming out very sporadically. I found that frustrating, so I decided to create my own solo project, Dirty Plotte.

What kinds of ideas, stories, or experiences were you looking to talk about in Dirty Plotte?

It was the late 1980s, I was freshly out of school, and the unemployment rate was very high, so I went on welfare. I was determined not to get depressed about this, so decided to self-publish one issue of Dirty Plotte every month. So I did that for 14 months.

It seemed natural to use myself as a character as a means to tell my stories, but that doesn’t mean that the stories were true or autobiographical. They were based on a mixture of personal experiences and pure, wild imagination. Eventually I wrote stories inspired by my nightly dreams. At the time I felt like a bottle of ink spilled onto a page: I put everything that went through my mind on paper. My fears, my obsessions, my doubts about myself.

In those days there were no comics publishers in Quebec. On some days I couldn’t even conceive of having my comics published by someone else, which partly explains the freedom you see in those pages.

How have the cities you lived in—Montreal, New York, Seattle, Berlin—shaped the direction and style of your work?

I’d say Berlin in particular influenced the direction of my subsequent work. The comics scene in Berlin, where I lived from 1995 to 1998, was very different from what I had experienced before. It seemed like everyone there also had a visual art practice. It was more open and there was more space for experimentation. I was quite inspired by Atak, Anke Feuchtenberger, Martin Tom Dieck, Christian Huth. The scene was very exciting and I was envious of all that freedom. Living there surely planted the seed for the end of me making comics.

Being in Berlin was great also because it attracted many artists from all over the place. I also met more women while living in Berlin—that was something new in my life. A Canadian woman artist, Susan Turcot, became a good friend and roommate. Through her I met another crowd, the visual art crowd, that I had long lost touch with. That, too, certainly made a difference.

In 2006, you told an interviewer that you were sick of comics and couldn’t stand the form. What made you feel this way? Have your feelings about comics changed?

At the time, I was able to live off of my comics but only barely, which meant that all of my energy was going into making them. Alternative comics were still printed mostly in black-and-white and there wasn’t as much space for experimentation as there is today. I felt trapped. And quitting comics also had a lot to do with the weariness I felt about feeling isolated as a woman in a crowd of men.

Today, the ratio of men to women in comics has improved a lot, plus it seems like you can put pretty much anything in a comic. More and more people are pushing these boundaries. They are still a minority, but there is great work being done out there.

Tell us about Time Zone J. What is it, and how did it feel to return to the comics form in this work?

I had this story in me that I wanted to tell but for years I just couldn’t find a way to put it on paper. I first tried writing it as a novel, then as a film script, but nothing worked. I also went through a long period of not being able to draw. When that was over, I got myself a Japanese sketchbook and filled it with drawings of people, just like I used to do as a kid. I filled its pages with crowds of people. That gave me the idea for how to tell my story without actually illustrating it. So in Time Zone J, I return as a character/narrator who is telling the story amid a crowd of strangers, animals, and random objects.

The story is autobiographical. It takes place in 1989, when I was living in Montreal, making Dirty Plotte, and selling it through a mail order catalogue. That’s how I met a French guy who was starting his mandatory year of military duty and was extremely unhappy about it. He’d ordered some of my comics and we became penpals.

When I made Time Zone J I hadn't drawn comics in years, and there was no way I was going back to the way I used to draw, either in terms of form or style. So for me this book was about a reappropriation of the comic form. I wanted to—needed to—deconstruct everything.

What are you working on now? And in what direction do you see your work heading?

I am working on a series of drawings for an exhibition of past, recent, and new work at Galerie Anne Barrault in Paris, which opens on November 30. Beyond that, I am not sure which direction I’ll be heading in. I’ve always loved working with words and narrative, and I think that will remain an important part of my work. And I seem to be able to draw again.

What advice would you give to aspiring young artists and cartoonists?

Work every day, even if it’s only for one or two hours. Keep exploring. And please don’t stick to the one thing that works.