Wertz, Julia – The Infinite Wait

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The Infinite Wait

Sometimes as a thought experiment I try to imagine a comics creator I thoroughly enjoy (like (spoiler alert!) Julia) and what complaints other people who don’t like her may have. With Julia, I have to confess to drawing an utter blank. Do people not like her because she’s too prolific? Because her comics seem to be effortlessly funny from panel to panel in a way that damned near everybody else could only dream of? Because she’s open and frank about damned near every aspect of her life but manages to do it in a way that makes it impossible not to sympathize with her? Or maybe nobody has a problem with her, which would be the way the world should work, so I’ll shut down this thought exercise right now. Anyway, if by some chance you haven’t read her work before now, or were intimidated by the fact that you missed a few issues of “Fart Party” and didn’t want to jump on in the middle, this is a new, self-contained work, and it’s the best thing she’s ever done. That I’ve seen, anyway, and I haven’t seen everything. But this one is so good that I still don’t even know where to start praising it. The intro is probably the place to start, as she describes how she’s had this idea for a comic for years (how she learned that she had lupus) but that nobody was willing to publish it. This kind of thing drives me crazy, but I don’t control the publishing houses of the world, so I’ll let it go. Then she mentions that the title is an inside joke but that she loves the idea of somebody picking this up at a bookstore, thinking it’s the “next big thing” because of that title and being very shocked and offended at the content, and it’s impossible not to appreciate that. And I haven’t even gotten to the comics! This is broken up into three short stories, and they serve the purpose of basically telling the story of her life so far. And if you’re annoyed that you miss a month or two here and there, she’s even nice enough to mention which volume of the collected “Fart Party” you would have to read to plug in those holes. The first story tells the story of the various jobs she’s held over the years, from selling rocks to a neighbor as a small child all the way up to her present career making comics. She has held a ton of shitty jobs over the years, which obviously sucked at the time, but at least it left her loaded with great stories. And just in case I didn’t already respect her as much as was humanly possible, she also tells the story of how her comic almost got picked up for a tv series but that she killed it because she was essentially selling her life’s story with no input needed from her, and she wanted to be sure that if it ever did get made into a series that she would have a chance to make sure it was done right. It’s not easy to turn down a pile of money for the sake of your artistic integrity, but she did it. The next section deals with her learning that she has lupus, all of the various health problems associated with it and how lupus led directly to her discovering comics and eventually making her own. I don’t think most humans could make lupus this funny, but Julia is more than up to the challenge. Finally there’s a section on her love of libraries over the years, from the book sales to the smell of a really old book to finding lots of graphic novels. This last one is the shortest of the bunch, but it’s heartfelt as all hell and will make you want to go back to the library right away if you haven’t been to one for awhile. You’ll notice that I don’t go into much detail at all, which is odd for a 200+ page book that probably took me over three hours to read. That’s mostly because everybody who already knows her work probably read as far as “new, self-contained work” before they stopped and ordered a copy for themselves, and the rest of you should know as little as possible about this woman before reading this, because it’s all laid out here. I don’t think there’s a single funnier human working in comics today, and you all know that I read a LOT of comics. So buy a copy of this, why don’t you? I’m not big on guarantees, what with individual tastes being different all over, but if you buy a copy of this and somehow hate it I’ll buy it off you (this offer is valid until somebody decides to be a smart ass and buy 50 copies). That way I could pass a copy along to somebody who would appreciate it, WHICH IS EVERYBODY ELSE. Enjoy! $15

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Posted on April 29, 2013, in Reviews and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink. Comments Off on Wertz, Julia – The Infinite Wait.

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