Renée French (born 1963) is an American

comics a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

writer and illustrator and, under the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

Rainy Dohaney, a

children's book Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

author, and exhibiting artist. Her work is characterized by her "obsessive-looking and highly unsettling visual style."

Books

Her work includes ''H Day'' (Picturebox), ''The Soap Lady'' (inspired by the display in the

Mütter Museum The Mütter Museum is a medical museum located in the Center City area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It contains a collection of anatomical and pathological specimens, wax models, and antique medical equipment. The museum is part of The Coll ...

) (

Top Shelf Productions Top Shelf Productions is an American publishing company founded in 1997, originally owned and operated by Chris Staros and Brett Warnock and a small staff. Now an imprint of IDW Publishing, Top Shelf is based in Marietta, Georgia. Top Shelf pub ...

), ''The Ticking'' (Top Shelf Productions), and ''Micrographica'' (Top Shelf Productions), ''Edison Steelhead's Lost Portfolio: Exploratory Studies of Girls and Rabbits'' ( Sparkplug Books), and ''Marbles in My Underpants'' (

Oni Press Oni Press is an American independent comic book and graphic novel publisher based in Portland, Oregon. In 2019, it became an imprint label following the company's merger with Lion Forge Comics. The merged company, Oni–Lion Forge Publishing Grou ...

). She also has a weekly strip ''The Taint'' in the ''

New York Press ''New York Press'' was a free alternative weekly in New York City, which was published from 1988 to 2011. The ''Press'' strove to create a rivalry with the ''Village Voice''. ''Press'' editors claimed to have tried to hire away writer Nat Hento ...

''. Her serialized comic ''Baby Bjornstrand'' appears on the Study Group Comic Books website. ''The New York Times'' said her graphic novels "split the difference between adorable and horrifically gross"; writing about "Baby Bjornstrand", they called it "equal parts Daffy Duck and Samuel Beckett, and all quirky Renée French". French has a serialized illustrated story in the

Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint. History Founding Fantagraphics was found ...

quarterly Mome called "Almost Sound". She is also the author of the comic book for children, ''Barry's Best Buddy'', released by

Toon Books Toon Books is a publisher of hardcover comic book early readers founded by Françoise Mouly. With titles by such creators as Geoffrey Hayes, Jay Lynch, Dean Haspiel, Eleanor Davis, and Mouly's collaborator and husband, Art Spiegelman, Toon Books pr ...

in 2013.

Artistic influences

As a child, French found a book plate of Hieronymus Bosch's ''

The Garden of Earthly Delights ''The Garden of Earthly Delights'' is the modern title given to a triptych oil painting on oak panel painted by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch, between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was between 40 and 60 years old. It has bee ...

'' and was enchanted by it. In regards to the influence, French stated "I don't know how many hours I stared at it under the covers, but I'd memorised each little scene within the paintings and thought about them all the time. That world was so real to me." French suffers from migraines, which she uses to her creative advantage, as detailed in her interview wit
WOW x WOW
Her book, ''H Day'', is "an attempt to show what it's like to have a migraine, from the outside and the inside." According to French, "most of the portraits with things exploding out of the face or the skin warping around the head, are based on the migraines."

Mascots

French drew both the mascot of the

Plan 9 from Bell Labs Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system which originated from the Computing Science Research Center (CSRC) at Bell Labs in the mid-1980s and built on UNIX concepts first developed there in the late 1960s. Since 2000, Plan 9 has be ...

operating system ("Glenda", aka "the Plan 9 Bunny"), and the gopher mascot for the Go programming language.

Personal life

French grew up in New Jersey, and was always drawing as a child. French is married to

Rob Pike Robert "Rob" Pike (born 1956) is a Canadian programmer and author. He is best known for his work on the Go programming language and at Bell Labs, where he was a member of the Unix team and was involved in the creation of the Plan 9 from Bell La ...

, one of the creators of Plan 9 from Bell Labs, and of the Go programming language at Google. They split their time between the United States and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Awards

In 2007, French was nominated for a number of comics industry awards - including for best artist nods from the Eisner,

Ignatz Ignatz is a masculine given name. Notable people with the given name * Ignatz Bubis (1927–1999), German Jewish leader and chairman of the Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland from 1992 to 1999 * Ignatz Leo Nascher (1863–1944), Austrian-born, ...

, and

Harvey Award The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be the successor to the Kirby Awards that were ...

s - for the

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

''The Ticking''. French won the

Inkpot Award The Inkpot Award is an honor bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International. It is given to professionals in the fields of comic books, comic strips, animation, science fiction, and related areas of popular culture, at CCI's annual c ...

at the 2007 San Diego Comic Con.

Bibliography

Select comics works

*''Hagelbarger and That Nightmare Goat'' (Yam Books), 2013. * ''Barry's Best Buddy'' (

) 2013 * ''Bjornstrand'' (

PictureBox PictureBox was an art, music, photography, and comics publishing company based in Brooklyn, New York directed by Dan Nadel. PictureBox published its own books and packages books and concepts for museums and galleries. The company began in 2002 ...

) September 2012 * ''Baby Bjornstrand'' (Koyama Press) September 2014 * ''H Day'' (

) 2010 * ''Micrographica'' (

) 2007 * ''The Ticking'' (

) 2006 * ''Marbles in my Underpants'' (

) * ''The Soap Lady'' (

) * ''The Adventures of Rheumy Peepers & Chunky Highlights'' (

) * ''Grit Bath'' (

Fantagraphics Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint. History Founding Fantagraphics was found ...

) * ''Edison Steelhead's Lost Portfolio: Exploratory Studies of Girls and Rabbits'' (Sparkplug Books) June 2007.

Children's books (as Rainy Dohaney)

* ''My Best Sweet Potato'' (

Atheneum Books Atheneum Books was a New York City publishing house established in 1959 by Alfred A. Knopf, Jr., Simon Michael Bessie and Hiram Haydn. Simon & Schuster has owned Atheneum properties since its acquisition of Macmillan in 1994 and it created Athene ...

) 2006 * ''Tinka'' (

) 2005

Footnotes

References

Renée French InstagramRenée French drawing blogRenée French official siteInterview with Renée FrenchThe Comics Journal interview with Renée French

WOW x WOW interview with Renée French
{{DEFAULTSORT:French, Renee American comics writers Alternative cartoonists Underground cartoonists American female comics artists Female comics writers 1963 births Living people Inkpot Award winners