2019 Eisner Award winner
Top Ten Most Anticipated Art Book of Fall 2018, Publishers Weekly
“Moore’s great gift to scholarship on Doucet’s work and/or the history of non-cis-male comic-makers is her focus on the details of Doucet’s comics: from her alertness to moments when a character’s foot kicks through the outline of a panel because of the foot’s enthusiasm, to all of the graphic elements that add up to a sequence being a “dreamoir” (dream memoir), to the relative fragility of lettering and line weight. Moore’s attention is razor sharp … ” —Hyperallergic
“A historiography, Sweet Little Cunt examines Doucet’s work as well as the comic book industry and the particular brand of masculinity of that world.” —City Pages
“Doucet’s highly imaginative, idiosyncratic, absorbing, labor intensive, trailblazing, gender-bending comics, made primarily for her personal (single-creator) anthology series, Dirty Plotte (Note: for those unaware, plotte is French for cunt, allowing Doucet’s series to slide under the Anglophone radar—and thus the title of Moore’s book) were game changers in more ways than one. Her imagination, degree of craft, size of output, and artistic fearlessness put her creative talent on par with the best comics being done during that time and conclusively cracked the alternative/independent comics boys’ club. A true original, Doucet explored – and contested – definitions of gender and mental health in ways at once humorous and scary, but ultimately empowering. Anyone looking for an intellectual framework within which to better appreciate her work need look no further: this is it.” —Copacetic Comics
Long considered one of the most influential women in American independent comics—although she left the field, and is Canadian—Julie Doucet finally receives a full-length critical overview of her work, from a noted chronicler of independent media and critical gender theorist. Doucet’s particular ingenuity and success, however, challenge the field of comics to reconsider its critical tendencies, and the cartoonist’s work additionally merits new models for addressing creator contributions. Grounded in a discussion of mid-1990s independent media and the corollary discussion of women’s rights, this book addresses longstanding questions about Doucet’s role as a feminist figure, master of the comics form, and object of masculine desire, primarily by situating her oeuvre within a discussion of female-identified critics and comics creators. Doucet’s work is hilarious, charming, thoughtful, brilliant, and challenging even three decades on; it nearly demands, when considered in context, that we rethink
the ways we talk about comics in general.
Paris Review excerpted the essay “The Destabilizing Desire of Julie Doucet.”
Dominic Umile crafted a nice description of an event with Doucet at his blog.