Bury Me Already (It’s Nice Down Here): Comics on Pregnancy and Parenthood

New Yorker cartoonist Wertz follows Impossible People with another fearless, funny, and foulmouthed graphic memoir. Having relocated from New York City to Northern California, Wertz gets serious with on-and-off boyfriend Oliver and settles into her version of a mature life: “somewhere to eat, somewhere to read, and somewhere to poop.” But when an unexpected pregnancy ends in miscarriage, she realizes she wants a baby, even if it means putting her life as a freewheeling, urban-spelunking artist on hold. Wertz ends up giving birth during Covid lockdowns, and her son, Felix, is monitored for a potential heart problem while the family copes with the California wildfires. Julia finds support in her eccentric family (her filter-less mother’s advice is “both timeless and reliant on whatever media [she] just consumed”), but one of her brothers endures a mental health crisis just as Julia is busiest with her infant. Wertz draws simple characters against lovingly detailed backgrounds, lavishing attention on vintage storefronts and the intermingling in her home of scavenged curios with baby toys. There’s a welcoming messiness to it all that feels apropos to the circumstances—some gag-strip-style anecdotes sport a sketchier stick-figure style, other moments are told as illustrated text, and a few real photos of her kid are movingly peppered in. “Go away,” she tells her son, “so I can finish making this comic about how much I love you.” An artist as smart and snarky as Wertz is incapable of crafting a conventional parenthood story, yet she brings real heart to her irreverent humor. This glows. (Apr.)