Canadian Julie Doucet won the Grand Prix de la Ville d’Angoulême on Wednesday, the most prestigious consecration in comics.
The 56-year-old Quebecer is only the fourth woman to put her name on this list. She is rewarded for all of her work, mainly composed of fanzines where she gives free rein to a punk aesthetic and an unbridled imagination. She is also the first Canadian to receive this award, the vast majority of winners being European, especially French or Belgian.
I have a hard time believing it
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Julie Doucet is best known for the fanzines she wrote some thirty years ago, “Dirty Plotte”, expressionist or even trashy, recently brought together in one volume in English, Spanish and then French editions.
“I have a hard time believing it. In fact, I am very nervous, ”she said on the stage of the National Theater in Angoulême. “All that started from almost nothing, a little fanzine in the 80s with a title that was not very clear. And here I am in Angoulême, I won the most important prize in the comics industry, ”added this author who makes very few public appearances.
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The Festival opened on Wednesday evening with a “concert of drawings” in tribute to the Ukrainian people, who are facing the invasion of the Russian army launched in February. American comic book artist Chris Ware, who presented the 2022 prize to Julie Doucet after having won it himself in 2021, compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to “the bully of the playground”.
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