(the winner of 2021's Grand Prix)
Canadian cartoonist Julie Doucet was awarded the Grand Prix lifetime achievement award at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Angoulême International Comics Festival last night. Doucet, 56, is best known for the underground comic “Dirty Plotte,” a surreal, autobiographical strip published by Drawn & Quarterly from 1991 to 1998. She quit creating comics afterwards due to her frustrations over sexism in the industry, choosing to pursue other mediums instead, but she recently made a return with the upcoming graphic novel “Time Zone J” (due out April 22, 2022.)
In a press release, the festival noted, “Twenty-two years have passed since Julie Doucet last produced a comic strip!,” but “this goes to show that the comics world has memory, and above all, that Julie Doucet’s work – which has greatly influenced comic artists from the world over – never ceases to renew itself!” They added, “With her extraordinary linework, grungy yet superbly elegant in her oh-so personal and brashly free style, she has produced a radically feminist body of work that tackles themes seldom addressed, especially in such a direct manner: the body, menstruation, sexual fantasies, gender issues, and more.”
Doucet said during her acceptance speech, “Thank you so much. I’m overwhelmed. It’s hard to believe it all began from nothing, from a little fanzine in the 1980s with a dirty little name and now I find myself receiving the most important prize in the comics industry.” She is only the third woman to win the Grand Prix d’Angoulême, after Florence Cestac and Rumiko Takahashi, and the first recipient from an entirely female field of nominees (also shortlisted this year were French cartoonists Catherine Meurisse, and Pénélope Bagieu.) She dedicated her prize to “all the women authors of the past, present, and future.” As the winner of the Grand Prix, Doucet will serve as the president of the board and the prize jury for next year’s festival; design the poster for next year’s edition; and receive an exhibition of her work.
The 2022 Angoulême International Comics Festival, which marks the first full edition of the event since January 2020, will run until Sunday, March 20.
