The Canadian magazine The Walrus has a short interview up with Julie Doucet, whose latest book, 365 Days, will be arriving in stores soon from Drawn and Quarterly:
TW: Do you miss making comics — or at least, do you miss the specific storytelling conventions of comics? Is narrative still important to your work?
JD: No, I don’t miss drawing comics and its conventional laws. There will always be words in my work. I would very much like to write short stories, maybe eventually a novel. But I need to write in a visual way… for example, with cut-out words. Writing is what I am all about.TW: Is it frustrating to still be considered a comic artist when you’ve more-or-less ditched the medium for nearly a decade?
JD: Yes it has been very frustrating. I knew it would be difficult to make people admit that I can do something different, but not THAT difficult! But it is finally changing now, at least here in Montréal, because I did many group shows, a solo exhibition, and last summer the Biennale de Montréal, that kind of did the job. It seems that the world of contemporary art got curious about comics in the past 3-4-5 years… and the comic world opened itself to more experimental work. So yes, it was natural… in the end. I still live from my royalties, and comics original sales… art is not very lucrative!
As an added bonus, The Walrus also has Doucet’s comic strip about her move to Montreal available for download as a pdf.
