Jessa Crispin
Great political movements start from the ground up. A group of citizens, faced with a government they find corrupt or unethical, take to the streets and march through their cities, sowing grassroots dissent through speech, writing, discussion and art. Great rabblerousers have shifted the direction of nations because of a firmly held conviction that the prescribed route is simply wrong. We all tell ourselves lies at some point or another to soothe our social anxieties, our awkwardness. “He’s not staring at me because my dress is totally inappropriate for this party, it’s because he’s overwhelmed with desire.” Or the favorite of mothers comforting their bullied junior high school children: “They’re just jealous.” Canadian cartoonist Julie Doucet retired from comics in 1999 after the publication of her critically acclaimed My New York Diary. Her straightforward depictions of life as a broke artist and of her rampant id, as well as her imaginings of what she would do if she woke up as a man (for the most part, delightedly shaving her face, finding alternate uses for her penis, and dreaming about performing homosexual acts with the Monkees’ Micky Dolenz), were exhilarating for their honesty and bluntness.