PositiveThe Smart SetIn her groundbreaking 1990s series, Dirty Plotte, Doucet delineated an aesthetic that was brazen, clever, funny, and broke taboos like they were cheap ceramic plates. Reading her comics, you could be excused for wishing you had an ounce of her fearlessness, at least when it came to putting ink on paper ... yet despite the gore and excess, there is a comical playfulness to Doucet’s work that belies (but does not completely negate) those transgressive aspects. Her panels are always bustling with activity and clutter; every object on the street or in her apartment seems capable of coming to life (and does in one particular comic) ... That sense of playfulness extends to her general amusement with the human body, particularly genitalia ... Doucet frequently crosses gender barriers herself in her stories, imagining herself as a man ... But if her attitude towards male anatomy is amused, her attitude towards men in general is decidedly less positive. The men in Doucet’s comics are shiftless and unreliable at best, malevolent and violent at worst.
