Fans of Julia Wertz’s FART PARTY comics will thrill to DRINKING AT THE MOVIES. Not only does it mark her jump from indie publisher (Atomic Books) to big-shot publisher (Random House), but it’s also “her first full-length graphic memoir.” At least that’s how the press sheet reads.
But I could swear I’ve read some of this stuff before in the two FART PARTY collections. I can’t find them around here to compare, but I’m guessing some of this work either has been reprinted or repurposed for DRINKING. And that’s fine, as long as it exposes her to a wider audience.
Wertz is among the most emotionally naked talents in indie comics. The girl has no filter, and apparently there is no aspect to her life she won’t draw … and that includes her sitting on the toilet, “ejecting” that day’s food.
This book chronicles her 2007-2008 adventure in leaving her family in San Francisco to “make it” in New York City. She has a string of menial jobs, her love life is in shambles, she’s forever broke, she lives shitty apartments, and alcohol makes her do incredibly stupid things. Meanwhile, back home, her junkie brother is in and out of trouble. In short, as she says, “My life is the abortion JUNO should have had.”
Her drawings are simple, but effectively cartoony; it’s her biting wit that gives voice to the story that is her life. She’s the anti-CATHY. And that is a very good thing. —Rod Lott
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