IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE - Serio Comics 9
IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE: A Completely Average Recovery Story written & drawn by Julia Wertz, published by Black Dog & Leventhal and Hachette Book Group
Last night I had a really fun time at Skylight Books here in LA attending a reading by Julia Wertz of her new graphic memoir, IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE: A Completely Average Recovery Story, which she wrote and drew, and was published this May of 2023 by Black Dog & Leventhal and Hachette Book Group
I had previously read Julia’s first full-length graphic memoir, DRINKING AT THE MOVIES, which was published back in 2010
It contrasts very interestingly with this later graphic memoir
The debut is about leaving San Francisco and moving to New York City, this latter one is about long-time residency there and some thoughts of departure
The first book is often about self-deprecating ups and downs amid drinking, while the second one is about the process of quitting and what that brings up in the rest of life
The 2010 story, if I remember correctly, had some professional success depicted, but this one is more about the realities of the middle stages of a well-regarded but modestly-incomed career
And I believe there’s a certain character in both with the first name starting with O…
Julia was joined by her friend and fellow cartoonist, Lisa Hanawalt, who warmed up the crowd with her own hilarious presentation about titles, words, and phrases that she doesn’t remember or understand, but makes up instead with visual gags
Lisa, whose Hot Dog Taste Test, I recently enjoyed from the Libby app and the LA Library, had some of the characters from her webcomic in that book that were later adapted into the animated TV show, Tuca and Bertie
They are both part of a squad of cartoonists who all rented studio space together in New York pre-2020s, including Kate Beaton, whose graphic novel, DUCKS: Two Years in the Oil Sands was featured in Seriocomis 4
When I go to readings at Skylight and buy the book for a signing, I often like to do a Bibliomancy, which is when you set an intention to derive meaning from opening up a random page in a book
This worked very well with Eric Orner in Seriocomics 3 when I happened to open to the first page he drew of his book even though it was deep in the middle of the story
And it worked synchronistically again last night as I happened to randomly open to a page that had Lisa with Julia in it (one of maybe 15 in a 315-page book?)
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