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?)
These real-life cameos are one of the many charming qualities of Julia’s work
Specifically her no punches pulled matter-of-factness such as a random encounter with the writer Jonathan Ames
I ended up staying up until 3 AM loving and finishing the book because it was full of idiosyncratic, perfectly timed jokes like this one with her brothers:
Which made me literally LOL as I recalled a recent manic-type episode where I called a friend I was about to visit to warn them “I’m coming in a little hot!”
But, like a lot of the graphic works covered on this Substack, IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE mixes its humor with very serious depths
About a subject that I’ve also been working through too, which is sobriety
This also made me smile quite a bit as I recalled my own primary care doctor
Before 2019 when I had my dad’s death, end of the marriage, return of manic episodes, but also spiritual awakening that led to integrated life changes like quitting alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, pornography, fried foods, added sugar and red meat besides festivities, and much more…
I went to see him and he barely knew me at that time
But based on my physical, he said, off the cuff, something like, I recommend these lifestyle changes so you’ll live more than 15 more years
I was 35 at the time LOL
In retrospect even though my sister is a doctor and so is one of my best friends, sometimes it’s good to get a completely objective perspective on your health instead of one clouded by the sentimentality of others knowledge of your other healthier years
Anyway, this is one of the central qualities that Wertz conveys through her story which is that damaging coping mechanisms like food, like alcohol, like porn, like shopping, can be replaced with other forms of healthier regulation
For Julia that meant various activities like exercise, helping to raise a good friend’s child, and a very unusual hobby called urban exploring where she ends up meeting a new community of people that then seemed to turn into a subject of a book
Similarly, for me, helping to raise a godchild, Enneagram connections, and playing tennis have been super helpful replacements
And what I love about Julia’s work is that she makes some very astute and honest observations about how sometimes discarding one form of unhealthy self-regulation can open up other forms of troublesome ones
This one about social media and posting addiction also made me literally LOL
Because
Well
You know ;)
I ended up actually going back into Skylight after spending some time reading in my apartment a block or two up Vermont Avenue
In order to see if Julia was still there to give her another compliment about her book because it was already so engaging
She was there indeed, and I think she thought the gesture was somewhat charming if perhaps a bit too impulsive too lol
But!
One other thing Julia also helped me with at the reading is music in graphic literature!
Julia puts in some very great and specific song lyrics throughout her book
I asked her a question about this in the Q+A because as the writer of a music and memoir Substack, Shuffle Synchronicities, I can’t help but also include lots of music in my graphic novel debut in progress
She said that her policy with her publisher is to just note the name of the artist as she does above in the reference to “Summer in the City” by Regina Spektor…
Which by the way is truly one of the best songs to enjoy a city in the summer
Maybe I should add hella more songs ;)
The last thing I’ll add here at least is that I really resonate with Julia’s self-awareness about how ambition and work creep into her content
Recently, I’ve been thinking about how thoughts about the future fantasies of the finished graphic novel is an idealization that can be frustrated by the end results and perhaps the enjoyment of them prevents me from finishing it sometimes
Julia finds an activity that helps her remove what I call ‘the double thinking’ that often occupies a memoir-based writer’s mind where reality is being lived and recorded & experienced and analyzed, without enough presence
Ironically enough, while this happens for me in concentrating on a tough tennis match often or when I’m surrounded by community I connect well with, it also happened when I finally shot a gun for research for the project
As Julia writes the situation “…forced me to play close attention…there was no room in my mind for whatever middling nonsense I usually dwelled on every day.”
While I still love writing
Analyzing synchronicities
Reading books
Enthusing about graphic literature
And believe social media memes are another form of art
Actually meeting and connecting a bit with Julia, instead of just reading her book, inspires me to continue to strive to balance art and life, as workaholism is yet another form of somewhat unhealthy self-regulation
Even if I still want to make a “we’re making memes now” Substack as well one day
What do you think of this one I just made???!!!
LOL…
OK!
Congrats to Julia Wertz on her remarkable and enjoyable achievement!
IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE: A Completely Average Recovery Story is available from bookstores and libraries at Goodreads locally in LA at Skylight, from other local stores at Bookshop.org, and from Amazon
That’s the ninth Seriocomics!