Dirty Plotte - by Julie Doucet (Mixed Media Product)

Book Synopsis

An enduring collection of revolutionary comics from a genre-transforming and critically acclaimed cartoonist

Julie Doucet arrived in comics in the 1990s as a fully formed cartoonist. Her comic book series Dirty Plotte was visionary both for the medium and for storytelling. Her stories are candid, funny and intimate, plumbing the depths of the female psyche while charting the fragility of the men around her. Her artwork is dense and confident, never wavering in the wit and humour of its owner. Doucet was active in comics for fifteen years before she moved on to other mediums. Her influence casts a long shadow over the medium, Dirty Plotte is quite simply one of the most iconic comic book series to have ever been created.

Dirty Plotte: The Complete Julie Doucet collects the entire comic book series, including the acclaimed My New York Diary, as well as rare comics and previously unpublished material; a reproduction of the first Dirty Plotte mini comic; essays about her comics legacy and feminist influence by curator Dan Nadel and academic Martine Delvaux respectively; an interview by comics scholar Christian Gasser; and personal anecdotes from Jami Attenberg, Adrian Tomine, and more.

Doucet uses the covers of this two-book box set to present an all-new comic that explores her complicated relationship with femininity and the importance of her relationships with female readers. Astonishingly honest, brutal, and funny, Dirty Plotte is a revelatory journey into a legendary cartoonist's oeuvre.

Review Quotes

"A lavish history lesson for those who might take today's outpouring of feminist comics for granted... and while most of the material dates from 20 to 30 years ago, the wonderment and rage at virulently gendered behavior feels fresh, and relevant for this moment."--Hillary Chute, The New York Times

"While stretching the boundaries of what a 'comic book' can be, Doucet makes work that functions as a warm blanket in a cold, cold world."--Kathleen Hanna

"These are among the most personal and powerfully intimate comics ever made. In their obsessive, utterly-fearless precision they draw us fully into Doucet's private dream-vision, a gleefully-nihilistic, rageful and tenderly melancholic perspective on a dark and complicated world, the panels so dense with raw anthropomorphous energy they seem more like living organisms than lines on paper."--Daniel Clowes

"A magnificent two book box set that comprisesthe complete Julie Doucet, the Canadian artist whose funny, feminist, and candidly intimate tales of the female psyche have never seemed more bracing or relevant."--Rachel Cookie, The Guardian

"An author of endless skill... Dirty Plotte documents Doucet's genius."--BOMB Magazine

"Doucet uses transgression to carve out a space of power and freedom."--New York Review of Books

About the Author

Julie Doucet was born near Montreal in 1965 and is best known for her frank, funny, and sometimes shocking comic book series Dirty Plotte, which changed the landscape of alternative cartooning. In the 1990s, Doucet moved between New York, Seattle, Berlin, and Montreal, publishing the graphic novels My New York Diary, Lift Your Leg, My Fish is Dead!, My Most Secret Desire, and The Madame Paul Affair. In 2000, she quit comics to concentrate on other art forms. From these experiments emerged the collection of engravings and prints Long Time Relationship; her one-year visual journal, 365 Days; and sassy collages from fumetto comics, Carpet Sweeper Tales. Her post-comics artwork includes silkscreened artist's books, text-based collages, sculpture, and animation films.