Julia Wertz

Wertz was born in the San Francisco Bay Area. She made her name with a comic strip titled The Fart Party, which Atomic Books anthologized in two volumes in 2007 and 2009. Soon after the strip's success, she retired The Fart Party, claiming she was unaware of its impending significance at the time of its creation.[1] Wertz subsequently moved her online operations to the Museum of Mistakes site, where a few old Fart Party strips exist in the archive.

In 2010, Random House published Drinking at the Movies, Wertz's first full-length graphic memoir. Against the backdrop of her move from San Francisco to New York, the book details serious issues, such as a family member's battle with substance abuse and her own alcoholism, with trademark wit and self-effacement. The Los Angeles Times called Drinking at the Movies a "quiet triumph"[2] and critic Rob Clough, in The Comics Journal, said Wertz had "brilliant old-school comic strip timing."[3] Drinking at the Movies was nominated for a 2011 Eisner Award in the Best Humor Publication category.[4]

In September 2012, Koyama Press published The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, a collection of Wertz's short comic stories, which was nominated for an Eisner Award in the Best Reality Based Work category.[5][6] In 2014, Atomic Books released Museum of Mistakes: The Fart Party Collection, which anthologized Wertz's early books, plus new and extra material.[7] Her books have been translated into many languages.

From 2010 to 2012, Wertz was part of Pizza Island,[8] a Greenpoint studio consisting of cartoonists Sarah Glidden, Lisa Hanawalt, Domitille Collardey, Karen Sneider, Kate Beaton and Meredith Gran.

In 2015, Wertz started a monthly comics series for The New Yorker, about lesser-known historical events and facts about New York City, which appear online and in print.[9] as well as a monthly illustration series of cityscapes for Harper's Magazine. Those pieces were eventually expanded to make the book Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City, published by Black Dog & Leventhal/Hachette in 2017, for which Wertz won the 2018 Brendan Gill Prize Her work for the New Yorker expanded to autobiographical comics and still run once a month. In 2023, Wertz released Impossible People; A Completely Average Recovery Story, published by Black Dog & Leventhal/Hachette. She has been a MacDowell residency fellow two times (2016 and 2018).

After spending a decade in New York City, Wertz moved back to Northern California in 2016 where she lives with her partner Oliver, and their son Felix. She also runs Adventure Bible School, a blog about urban exploring.[10]

• The Fart Party, vol. 1, Atomic Books, 2007 (ISBN 978-0-9786569-3-5)
• The Fart Party, vol. 2, Atomic Books, 2009 (ISBN 978-0-9786569-4-2)
• Drinking at the Movies, Random House, 2010 (ISBN 978-0-307-59183-8)
  • translated as Entre Umas E Outras, Nemo, 2016. (ISBN 978-85-8286-298-8)
  • translated as Drinking at the Movies: Un anno a New York, Eris Edizioni, 2017. (ISBN 9788898644438)
  • translated as Whiskey & New York, L'Agrume, 2016 (ISBN 979-10-90743-52-6)
• The Infinite Wait, Koyama Press, 2012 (ISBN 978-0-9879630-2-4)
  • translated as L'attente infinie, L'Agrume, 2015. (ISBN 979-10-90743-28-1)
  • translated as The Infinite Wait, Eris Edizioni, 2018. (ISBN 9788898644537)
• Museum of Mistakes: The Fart Party Collection, Uncivilized Press, 2023 (ISBN 978-1941250464)
  • translated as Le Musée de Mes Erreurs, L'Agrume 2023 (ISBN 9782490975143)
• Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City, Black Dog & Leventhal, 2017 (ISBN 978-0316501217)
  • translated as Les Entrailles de New York, L'Agrume 2018 (ISBN 9791090743922)
  • translated as Barrios, Bloques y Basura Errata Naturae Editores 2018 (ISBN 8417800506)
• Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story, Black Dog & Leventhal, 2023 (ISBN 978-0-7624-6825-6)

• Adventure Bible School