If I had been in charge of the Sunday comics, you can be sure Ariel Bordeaux and Julie Doucet would be household names by now. To hell with Cathy and her sniveling attempts to lose weight and get married!

French Canadian Doucet has a raw, honest style that any grrl can relate to. Especially, if you're the type of grrl that tends to hate herself. In Dirty Plotte, (Plotte is Quebecois slang for vagina), anything is up for attack, whether it be art boys who tend to fuck and go or jealous girls who try to make the underdoggie feel like crap.

Everyone who's been dumped, wasted time in art school or had a hippie roommate will like Doucet's twisted little tales in Plotte.

With comic book titles such as "Leve ta jambe, mon poisson est mort" (Lift Your Leg, My Fish Is Dead), Doucet's pungent style is unlike anyone else's...except maybe Ariel Bordeaux.

Bordeaux's Deep Girl has similar angst and anguish in her female characters. She depicts an unsure girl trying to be cool when she knows she's just living out a scene from "Welcome to the Dollhouse".

Both Bordeaux and Doucet have something that their peers in the comic book industry don't...
a touch of the bizarre.

I can NEVER predict what will happen in any of their story lines. I want the characters to be happy, but deep down I hope they fail. I hope they fall on their butts. I wish them the tears that roll down any GenX cheek that desired to be in a John Hughes movie. I want them to be like me. They aren't pathetic or prissy, just proud.

There are other girls creating odd comix in their apartments, and I'm proud to showcase them here on Grrl.com. Ariel and Julie just happen to be my favorites.

If more girls took the time to seek out girl-made comics, maybe we wouldn't have to be so obsessed with our hatred for seeing Little Lulu, Blondie and Cathy cluttering up the Sunday paper. Nah.