There's so much funny!
She calls SF bagels "wizened"! (26)
She has the only PC in a sea of MACS! (111)
She want's Carl Kasell's voice on her home answering machine! (114)
"This is Julia from the trash can in a back alley in Chicago!" (170)
One distinction between this semester's authors that either we haven't made, or I haven't heard it hit home, is that some of these books are made by people who chose to represent their memoir graphically and some are comic artists who either put together a collection of work or were likely told, "Fart Party is so good, you gotta make a full length book."
One reason I bring this up is like I said when we were critiquing "Lucky", your audience and who is going to buy your books/comics can determine your content. This is true for all literature, right?
And who with power in the publishing industry isn't privileged?
There's something unsettling about young women in the U.S. questioning their privileges and social standing. We're supposed to be the stable nation with the successful young people. Marginalized communities have been being marginalized from the gate. But when even the young people with relative privileges are having a hard time in the recent economic collapse (pg 16), maybe older people with even more power will listen. Yeah right. This book isn't for that, this book is for other disillusioned young people to find solace, and that's a fine thing for it to be good for.
2007 was a rough year for me too (I was working in a movie theater with a Master's degree because it was the only job I could find in a small town in central Ilinois) so Wertz' goal "At the very least, I hope that readers will identify with some parts of this book"(7) worked for me at least.
I love how she builds and builds the pressure starting when she takes BART to the airport. After she gets yelled at by the drunk guy on BART (I know him!) she reminisces, "Aw, I'm gonna miss SF..."(19) then she tries to get on standby, then she tells the guy on the plane about getting lost in Penn Station (totally! That's where the Peter Pan buses are!) and a lady cracking her head on the sidewalk, and getting yelled at by a cabbie, and it keeps going. And then she has to sleep in the Las Vegas airport. Her deadpan delivery is not unlike an alcoholic, under the influence reportage, or someone who has normalized the highs and lows of misery.
She does the climax build up again on page 43, (It's HPV, not HIV) and page 44 while she waits in the waiting room. Being the mordant narrator that I am, I revel in Wertz' unwavering decision to end her panels with matter-of-fact gloom. "Right after a nurse announced 'we're running behind schedule because we only have one doctor today' the power went out"(44). In fact, I looked and she does it on almost every page. Check out 60 with its swath of black and the words GUILT dripping down like barf.
And the creme de la creme, on page 121 when she makes a cute sign for the tip jar and the lady says, "Really? Wow, I wouldn't think that someone who worked here could have made it". That is so classically how service workers are treated, who by now, with the other knowledge of the state of things from this book, are often degree holders. This exchange does make me feel like I found solace.
This book kind of reminds me of the section in US Weekly,"Stars, They're Just Like Us". Look at stars, they grocery shop just like we do!
Look, Comic book artists smell like they were just f'ed by dumpsters too!
Sailor, agreed, so much funny! Your assertion that "this book is for other disillusioned young people to find solace, and that's a fine thing for it to be good for," is on point. I certainly found some solace in this book, which allowed me to laugh at my generation but with a more critical lens.
ReplyDeleteHere's my favorite moment:
ReplyDelete"There's something unsettling about young women in the U.S. questioning their privileges and social standing. We're supposed to be the stable nation with the successful young people. Marginalized communities have been being marginalized from the gate. But when even the young people with relative privileges are having a hard time in the recent economic collapse (pg 16), maybe older people with even more power will listen. Yeah right. This book isn't for that, this book is for other disillusioned young people to find solace, and that's a fine thing for it to be good for. "
She puts the gloom in a mirrored room that repeats panels and refracts the utter absurdity/shortcomings of her self-awareness and its economic, generational, gendered context. Then she breaks through the panels, seemingly breaking the "fourth wall" but without ever distinguishing the moments when she's a "reliable" or "unreliable" narrator, making this almost a memoir about the absurdity or fun house quality of a particular position-context and the humor necessary to exist within it. She looks at herself and the architectural structures around her so much that several styles of graphics melt together, coexist, and offer several simultaneous reflections of the same scenario without resolution.
ReplyDeleteYou, my dear, are very humorous too. I'm glad to see that this is your favorite! <3 Julia is a compelling and intoxicating personality to be reckoned with, and I agree with your points here. My favorite moment is what Elmaz said, too.
ReplyDelete