A massive collection of most of Julia Wertz's Fart Party material. I read the first two volumes a decade ago, but I thought it a good idea to revisit them in this handy chunk of book before diving into Wertz's new graphic memoir, Impossible People. Everything is still felt fresh and funny with the exception of some insensitive language which Wertz apologizes for up front. I appreciate that she didn't edit out the offensive stuff though, giving us a warts and all look at her early work.

I'm often put off by books that center around a person with a substance abuse problem, but somehow Wertz's cartoon avatar stays adorable despite her drinking. The bathroom humor and her introverted personality kept me hooked as she wandered around California and made her way to New York City. It's sort of fun to track her growing popularity as a creator as more and more indy cartoonists start making cameo appearances in her strips, hanging out and working with her.

It took me nearly a week to get through this brick, but it was time well spent.

FOR REFERENCE:

Table of Contents for Museum of Mistakes: The Fart Party Collection, 2014, 400 pages:
• 1 - The Fart Party Vol. 1: Drawn/happened in 2005/2006, published in 2007.
• 2 - The Fart Party Vol. 2: Drawn/happened in 2006/2007, published in 2009.
• 3 - What Would Have Been The Fart Party Vol. 3, Had I Made It Instead I made Drinking at the Movies. The random comics I made during 2008-2012 unpublished make up this section.
• 4 - Sugar Pill Comix - The earliest early work that was never shown or published anywhere, for obvious reasons.
• 5 - Behind the Scenes - Process pages and sketchbook illustrations.
• 6 - Zines n' Things - Scraps from early zines, fan (hate) mail, interviews, magazine articles, short stories, etc. . . .

Table of Contents for Museum of Mistakes: The Definitive Fart Party Collection, 2023, 528 pages:
• Introduction: An Illustrated Guide to The Museum of Mistakes
• The Fart Party Vol. 1: Published in 2006 by Atomic Books [with Foreword and contribution by Peter Bagge and contribution by Josh Wertz]
• The Fart Party Vol. 2: Published in 2009 by Atomic Books [with Foreword by Nicholas Gurewitch]
• (What Would Have Been) The Fart Party Vol. 3: If I had made it. Instead I made Drinking at the Movies, a graphic novel about moving to NYC that follows Vol. 2. This section is all the unpublished, random comics I made during that time that were not put into a book
• Sketches by Laura Park and Myself: Done in Chicago and NYC, 2006-2012
• Sketchbook: Random doodles, commissioned pieces, promo art, etc.
• Sugarpill Comix: The earliest comics I made that were never published anywhere, for reasons that will be obvious when you get to this section.
• The Legend of Rebob Mountain: A semi-fictionalized version of true events that happened during my childhood in the 1980's.
• Addendum: The Fart Party's Over: A "graphic essay" I did for Narrativly in 2014, explaining why I quit making comics for a while. ( )