My New York Diary by Julie Doucet
Drawn and Quarterly: 1999
The name Julie Doucet is synonymous with underground comix. From her first foray into the scene with her self-published Dirty Plotte comix series beginning in 1988, to her later graphic novels such as Madame Paul and My New York Diary, Julie's work has set a standard for the alternative comix world.
My New York Diary gets away from much of the surrealism that fueled Dirty Plotte and is a more straight forward autobiographical story. Despite this, the comic still leaves you with the feeling you have read a story that is somehow otherworldly, due to the intricately detailed panels. Try flicking quickly through this book, and you'll be bombarded by a seemingly chaotic maelstrom of images. Read it slowly and carefully however, and the detail Julie uses serves to fully imerse you in her world, albeit a world depicted in fantastic hyper-reality.
The story itself begins by portraying Julie's first experience with sex and her disappointing stint at artschool, before documenting the main event: her move to New York. The author characterises herself as a slightly hapless, easily peer-pressured, kind hearted idealist who the reader will no doubt feel instant sympathy with (even during the times when you want to yell at her to leave her dead beat boyfriend).
Part of the appeal for me was the voyeuristic curosity I felt about what Julie's life was like during the writing of her early comics. Reading Dirty Plotte, I assumed the creator must have been a fully established, integrated member of the romantic and highly controversial underground comix scene, but My New York Diary shows a woman who is still trying to work out who she is, travelling to the otherside of the country in search of a scene which doesn't really exist, or which falls just beyond her grasp. At the same time, Julie is trying to deal with gradually worsening epilepsy and a jealous, weepy, emotionally manipulative drunken boyfriend (who is more comical than he is scary, but draining and dangerous none the less).
This comic will no doubt leave you feeling a little sad at the end as it's sort of about dreams that fail to reach fruition, but it's not depressing, it's got more of a (wonderful) mundaneity about it - as in it's easy to see a bit of yourself in Julie - and a light hearted sense of the absurdity of normal life.
MS 26/11/05