The Fart Party
by Julia Wertz
Published by Atomic Books
7" X 10"
178 pages, black and white, softcover
$12.95

Julia Wertz has gained a healthy cult-following on her comic blog, fartparty.org in a very short time - and she's only been drawing and writing comics for less than 3 years! Atomic Books has recently released Julia's first collection of comics (gathered from the blog and the self-published photocopied comic of the same name), which I read straight through in one sitting. Most mainstream and "underground" comic-strips at the moment are just not funny... at all. They're either totally stupid or overly self-conscious (desperate, actually) in an attempt to be idiosyncratic, but Fart Party is hilarious. As is the case with most auto-biographical comics there's a healthy dose of self-depreciation, but in Fart Party we are spared the cliche nerd-boy self-loathing polluting most comics. Julia doesn't take herself too seriously. In Fart Party you get to see the kind of girl you actually know, a sometimes boozy cute girl who reads, wastes time, grumbles, burps and gets irritated with you. Like David Sedaris she is able to convey the absurdity of mundane experience in a way people can relate to; you totally side with her and so you crack-up. Her economical, simple line drawings are highly effective at storytelling and very cute... I'm totally jealous she's got it all so right in such a little time.

The Fart Party is available for $12.95 at Atomic Books