kricketa's review against another edition
5.0
first read, october 2012:
a collection of three short stories from wertz: all the jobs she has ever worked, her systemic lupus diagnosis (josh: "i'm gonna call it 'poopus') and a love story about her childhood library. all of them fantastically illustrated & hilarious.
of note: some of these fart jokes i'd already read on her website, and i still laughed my ass off reading them the second time.
Second read, August 2023: Wow, you can tell me the same fart joke thrice and I'll laugh each time.
a collection of three short stories from wertz: all the jobs she has ever worked, her systemic lupus diagnosis (josh: "i'm gonna call it 'poopus') and a love story about her childhood library. all of them fantastically illustrated & hilarious.
of note: some of these fart jokes i'd already read on her website, and i still laughed my ass off reading them the second time.
Second read, August 2023: Wow, you can tell me the same fart joke thrice and I'll laugh each time.
librarianmillie's review against another edition
5.0
I love Julia Wertz. Her graphic novels really capture the essence of living like a misanthropic piece of shit through your 20s. (No judgement, Julia and I are very close in age and share similar life views. I ,too, was a misanthrope through most of my teens and early adulthood.) Whereas most of us grow-out of that stage, or sell-out if you ask my friends from high school who still wear bondage pants, Wertz keeps the artistic dream alive and is all the better for it. Drinking at the Movies put a humorous view on addiction and agoraphobia, The Infinite Wait and Other Stories is darker, more nuanced, and self-reflective. I missed some of the humor of Wertz's earlier work, but I appreciated how honest this book feels. Plus I have to say the first section of this book, where Wertz goes through every shitty job she ever had, could be a blueprint for my college years and beyond. The last section where Wertz thanks the library and librarians for forming who she is, as a librarian myself, almost made me cry. This is a great book and Wertz is a great artist.
sizrobe's review against another edition
5.0
This stuff is my jam. Indie autobiographical graphic novel about a love of making money, alcoholism, chronic lupus, and the love of libraries. The art isn't great, but it works well enough for the material. I just love Julia Wertz's work, like the unfortunately named The Fart Party and Drinking At the Movies. She definitely has some stories to tell.
hedera_helix's review against another edition
4.0
Funny as usual, Wertz' latest book is a little bit softer, slower than the rest. It's also less focused on comedy, but still brings on the lulz.
renatasnacks's review against another edition
4.0
Thanks to Eryn for filling a gap in my graphic novel knowledge--I'd never heard of Julia Wertz before, but I really enjoyed this book! Super funny and sharply-observed. Kind of Seinfeld-y, in a good way. Plus: library love!
heykellyjensen's review against another edition
4.0
This small-press comic from Wertz features three stories: the first is about all of the jobs she's worked; the second about her diagnosis of Lupus; the third about her love for the library. All three are precisely the kind of humor you'd expect from Wertz. It's crude but really human. At times, it's laugh-out-loud funny (the scene of her first babysitting job being my favorite).
It's interesting to me how open Wertz is about how her last book with Random House didn't do well, and how that led her to publish with Koyama.
Really, these are naval-gazing comics, but that's why I love them so much. There's no real depth. There's nothing to walk away with. It's just a few hours watching the world through someone else's really humorous perspective. I keep saying it, but if "new adult" is a thing, then there needs to be bigger consideration for graphic novels because this is where those stories are.
It's interesting to me how open Wertz is about how her last book with Random House didn't do well, and how that led her to publish with Koyama.
Really, these are naval-gazing comics, but that's why I love them so much. There's no real depth. There's nothing to walk away with. It's just a few hours watching the world through someone else's really humorous perspective. I keep saying it, but if "new adult" is a thing, then there needs to be bigger consideration for graphic novels because this is where those stories are.