CHAPTER FOUR from Riot Grrrl to Fine Artist: Transformations in the Work of Julie Doucet
CHAPTER FOUR From Riot Grrrl to fine artist: transformations in the work of Julie Doucet In Unpopular Culture, his study of 1990s European comic books, Bart Beaty examines the ways in which these comics’ creators have shifted their claims to legitimacy from literature to the visual arts. He argues that “the evolution from a criterion of value with its basis in the novel to one rooted in the artist’s book is the most significant shift in the orientation of the comics field in the past century”.1 His focus is on European, primarily Francophone comics, and he states that the US tradition (in which he includes Canada and Britain) operates quite different criteria of value. In his conclusion, however, Beaty notes the exceptions to the rule, and the example he gives is that of Julie Doucet.2 Doucet, he explains, is one of the few to straddle the European and American comics markets, producing highly individual, stylised books in both French and English, and publishing her work both through the Canadian comics press Drawn and Quarterly and through French publishers like L’Association, Seuil and Le Dernier Cri. Doucet’s range is not just cultural and linguistic but takes her beyond the comics field altogether. Many comics writers and artists produce non-comics work, often largely for financial reasons: Robert Crumb started out as an illustrator of greetings cards, Dave McKean has worked on films, CD and book covers, and Chris Ware has completed a number of design projects including posters, books and the façade of a building. Doucet, however, has moved decisively away from comics for creative as well as financial reasons, and in spite of the high regard in which her comics are held she has claimed to dislike producing them.3 This shift in her work is not simply a change of heart but indicative of the personal development of an artist whose work contains substantial elements of autobiography.
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