The Madame Paul Affair

by Julie Doucet

Julie Doucet and her boyfriend find a new apartment with cheap rent and a string of nutty neighbors. One ex-con “breaks out” of his apartment by smashing his own window. Another man attempts to kill himself by stuffing his head in a gas oven. But perhaps the oddest person of all is the landlady herself, Madame Paul, who one day mysteriously disappears...

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Bande Dessinée, Comix, Canada, Graphic Novels Comics, Autobiography

56 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Julie Doucet is a Canadian underground cartoonist and artist, best known for her autobiographical works such as Dirty Plotte and My New York Diary.

Doucet began cartooning in 1987. Her efforts quickly began to attract critical attention, and she won the 1991 Harvey Award for "Best New Talent".
Shortly thereafter, she moved to New York. Although she moved to Seattle the following year, her experiences in New York formed the basis of the critically-acclaimed My New York Diary (1999). She moved from Seattle to Berlin in 1995, before finally returning to Montreal in 1998. Once there, she released the twelfth and final issue of Dirty Plotte before beginning a brief hiatus from comics.
She returned to the field in 2000 with The Madame Paul Affair, a slice-of-life look at contemporary Montreal which was originally serialized in Ici-Montreal, a local alternative weekly. At the same time, she was branching out into more experimental territory, culminating with the 2001 release of Long Time Relationship, a collection of prints and engravings. In 2004, Doucet also published in French an illustrated diary (Journal) chronicling about a year of her life and, in 2006, an autobiography made from a collage of words cut from magazines and newspapers (J comme Je).
In 2007, Doucet published 365 Days, in which she chronicles her life for a year, starting in late 2002.
After a long hiatus, Doucet came back to publication with Time Zone J (2022).

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Julie and her deadbeat boyfriend move into a flat whose landlord is the cheerful Madame Paul. Besides her trying to set up Julie with her nephew, not much happens and then Madame Paul abruptly disappears. Julie sets out to find her.

This was included in the recent Humble Bundle for Banned Books Week and apparently The Madame Paul Affair was a “challenged” book. No idea what anyone would find offensive about it besides it being unfortunately very boring! A neighbour attempts suicide but it happens off-panel and another talks about smoking weed but doesn’t - I’m guessing some puritanical Kentucky Fried Southern mom found these inclusions wildly offensive and tried to get it tossed onto the latest book burning bonfire for those reasons alone?

This is my first Julie Doucet book and I don’t love her style. Very, very crowded pages with too much drawn into each panel, too many words - it looks extremely busy. Also all of the characters either look like chibi versions of humans or caricatures and I’m not sure if that’s intended. It reminds me of Bob Fingerman’s work - ergh! I understand that it was originally serialised in a weekly Montreal rag and so had to fit into a page-a-week format but still, far too much was crammed in!

The dialogue is phrased strangely at times too probably as a result of English not being Doucet’s first language and it looks like she did the translation herself - the slightly off-kilter speech is distracting to read.

The story itself is very uninteresting. I think we’re supposed to be gripped with the mystery of Madame Paul but really I was more amazed with how a 48 page comic could feel four times that length! Suffice it to say I wasn’t invested in any part of the narrative.

Perhaps her award-winning My New York Diary is a much better comic but The Madame Paul Affair definitely doesn’t live up to Julie Doucet’s rep as one of indie comics’ shining lights of the last 25 years. It may be tedious but it definitely doesn’t deserve to be censored in any form - all that happens when someone tries to ban a book is that the book becomes more noted. Ironically, if nobody had said anything, this dull comic would’ve sunk without a trace all by itself!

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Madame Paul Affair is a longer autobiographical tale of the weird condo Doucet was living in. Paul is the landlord's Aunt and manages the building. The ownership swap hands so Madame Paul leaves - but leaves without even saying a word. Later Doucet and her friend find a secret area in the basement and an alcohol still. There's some weird goings-on with the Paul family.

Great cartooning but not as manic and jam-packed as her earlier comics.

[Jessie Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a basic story, I'm sad I have to use that word to describe a Julie Doucet book. But I'm not sure it will hold much interest unless you're a big fan of her work already. Don't read this book as your introduction to her books. Start with My New York Diary instead.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mildly entertaining pseudo-autobiographical comic that riffs somewhat on gothic tropes: mysterious disappearance, creepy basement, mysterious stalkers, etc.--while ultimately all coming down to pretty banal stuff. The secret in the basement is just a still, being used to make illicit booze. Nobody really got kidnapped, there's no lost inheritance, no real mystery. Doucet's style is (or seems) deliberately ugly, even anti-craft (especially evident in the messy word balloons, which hyphenate words, even break them up over intervening eruptions into balloons such as heads, occasionally misspell words, often have odd or bad syntax), not my favourite kind of comics. So, not really my cup of tea, but engaging enough as a sort of gothic parody.

[Grégoire Maillard · Rating 1 out of 5]

J’ai découvert cette BD pour quelques euros à @aaapoumbapoum; étant fan du style de Julie Doucet, je me suis dis que cela valait le coup d’essayer cette BD assez méconnue de son oeuvre; il s’agit ici d’une compilation de 40 pages, chacune parue individuellement dans la presse montréalaise, et qui narre l’aventure de Doucet avec sa voisine Madame Paul qui disparaît soudainement; l’histoire est franchement vide et patine très lentement (le format de une page par semaine rend cela compréhensible, mais le rendu en intégral est peinant à lire), la fin n’est pas particulièrement excitante non plus; cela vaut peut-être le détour si vous le lisez en français pour voir du québécois écrit; le style de Doucet reste plaisant; une oeuvre anecdotique.

[Kiki · Rating 3 out of 5]

J’aime en principe beaucoup Julie Doucet qui a le chic pour se mettre dans des situations pas possibles (cf son deadbeat boyfriend a New York dans leur appart miteux !). La c’est un peu similaire mais à Montréal et avec beaucoup moins de choses intéressantes à dire. Si l’histoire démarre plutôt pas mal, elle s’enlise rapidement dans quelque chose de très peu intéressant et la révélation finale est quand même extrêmement décevante, pour ne pas dire ultra classique. Je ne sais pas s’il s’agit d’une histoire vraie ou s’il y a des bouts d’histoire vraie mais le tout n’est pas très intéressant. Dommage.

[Andy Bustamante · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5*

[Jeanne Simoneau · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gros feeling de mal traduit, phrases clairement calquées sur du français québécois. Je ressors de ma lecture en me disant que l'anecdote est ben drôle, ok, mais qu'il "fallait être là".

[Audree R · Rating 2 out of 5]

Belles planches, dessins intéressants en noir et blanc, mais l’histoire m’a semblé sans grand intérêt.

[Uri · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5*

[Annie L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bd glauque avec suspense juste assez présent pour qu'on souhaite en connaître la fin. J'ai apprécié davantage le talent de l'artiste dans cette oeuvre que dans Maxiplotte.

[Dione Basseri · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow. I really, really did not like this. And not because I got it in a Humble Bundle of banned books. It is just...so...boring! And nothing really happens! A couple moves into a group house, and the woman is constantly taken aside by the janitor-in-residence, Madame Paul. M. Paul is constaantly trying to hook the girl up with a nephew, despite neither of them being interested. Then the house is sold and M. Paul disappears! Gasp! What happened? Did she die? Was she abducted? Is this some weird mob-esque drama?

Nah. She moved a few blocks down and they never noticed her. :/

There's a small bit about an illegal still in the basement, but even that amounts to nothing. It's just a retelling of one of the author's life experiences, and the problem with that is her life...if boring.

This is just such a pure skip for me. I don't get why it was banned, because that would first require someone care about the book. And who in the world is going to do that?

[Miguel Jiménez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sí, es una comedia de situación, o sitcomic, como creo queda mejor. Tiene todo los elementos del género: ambientes "base", personajes fijos, muy bien definidos, recurrencia de "gags" o situaciones graciosas, etc. Aunque se parece más a las comedias animadas para adultos: Futurama, Archer, El show de Cleveland, etc, que a las comedias con personas —por ahí, comparten el hecho de "los personajes platicando en casa o en una cafetería", solo eso—. Es una comedia muy completa, lo digo por la irreverencia del planteamiento. Aquí hay misterio, suspenso, personajes muy extraños, espacio perturbador, todo ello con el humor de telón de fondo. Ah, y Madame Paul sí es todo un personaje como tal, inquietante y realista. Creo que hay varias mujeres-señoras como ella. Por cierto, el dibujo sí es bastante underground.

[Nan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most people read comics when they're young. So why am I doing it now? Doucet's work has an angry, punky edge to it. Madame Paul reminds me of me. Okay, I don't smoke. I own the house I live in. My husband and I have brewed beer, but it was all perfectly legal. (We drank it before we could think of selling it.) I am, however, a landlord and an admirer of the young couple who live upstairs.

I do wish I had discovered Doucet earlier in my life...but she probably hadn't been born yet.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Julie Doucet a whole bunch, but this wasn't that great. The whole Nancy Drew aspect kind of dragged on me and i wasn't engaged by it like i should have been. I was hoping Madame Paul was going to be an annoying dragon like one of her terrible boyfriends, rather this was an episode of Sister Sister easily resolved in a few 30-minute installments. Oh well. Hope 365 days is good!

[Yaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'aime beaucoup les dessins de Julie Doucet même si ils sont un peu chargés. Ca permet de rentrer dans son univers. L'histoire de ce bouquin tient vraiment en haleine. J'ai bien aimé le français québécois c'est drôle

[Roman Colombo · Rating 3 out of 5]

... ... ...

Okay. This exists It's weird and cute and I don't quite get it, but it was fun.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ma première BD de Julie Doucet et j'ai bien aimé le dessin, la langue et l'histoire divertissante. Je me promet de lire autre chose de cette bédéiste.