For the past month I have been trying to keep a diary. It’s rather small and only has about 5 or 6 lines for each day. But even just that I can’t seem to keep up with. So when Drawn and Quarterly sent over this Julie Doucet journal I was completely impressed. It’s a record of a year in her life- five years ago- Nov. 2002 to Nov. 2003- when she was still making comics (in June 2006 she declared she would never do comics again- “I quit comics because I got completely sick of it. I was drawing comics all the time and didn’t have the time or energy to do anything else. That got to me in the end. I never made enough money from comics to be able to take a break and do something else. Now I just can’t stand comics.” from an interview in The Drama.) The journal recounts her daily activities, feelings, encounters– baking cookies, playing poker but mostly, seems like almost always, working. She’s making linocuts, silkscreening, writing grants, meeting with publishers. It’s really a great insider’s look at the constant struggles as an independent artist. It’s also told through drawings and collage as well. Each page is fun to read because the handwriting is all over the places- curling around a drawings- broken up by ornamental boxes or written sideways so you have to turn the book to read it. The drawings show exciting scenes of the day, help describe the characters better, and highlight the emotions she described. I haven’t really read any of her other comics- except pieces in anthologies but after reading this really intimate year I’m tempted to buy her whole collection. You can get a copy of this book here.

© Julia Rothman 2007