The outrageously funny and painfully relatable satire of an aspiring artist and millennial culture
Walter Scott’s Wendy comics have become a critical sensation, with rave reviews in The New Yorker and The Guardian, and an appearance in the Best American Comics anthology. Learn Wendy’s origin story as Scott hilariously plumbs millennial culture, creative ennui, and the nepotism of the art world’s institutions.
Wendy’s an aspiring artist in a party city, and she’s in a rut. She spends her time snorting mdma in gallery bathrooms and watching Nurse Jackie reruns on her laptop while hungover. So when she’s accepted into the prestigious Flojo Island residency, Wendy vows to buckle down and get working. But during the remote, woodsy residency, Wendy and her collaborator/bff Winona put on a performance piece that becomes the centre of an art world controversy, and so Wendy returns to Montreal, getting a job in a coffee shop to make ends meet.
With Wendy, Scott launches the Wendyverse, brimming with painfully relatable characters like the back-stabbing frenemy Tina, the name-dropping Paloma, the cool drummer Wendy obsesses over, Jeff, and of course, our treasured Wendy, the hot mess we can’t live without. In blunt, laugh out loud funny vignettes with perfect punchlines, Scott illuminates the opacity of artspeak and the ceaseless anxieties plaguing a largely privileged generation.
Review
Nominated for the 2015 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel
"Even if you're neither a millennial, nor have ever been a 20-something post-art school party girl, Wendy is still a great read." ― Jessica Deer, The Eastern Door
"This endearing skewering of the contemporary art world, this needed injection of pathos and poignancy into all too-familiar, vacant, vapid archetypes & personalities, and this conjuring of a world that's relatable to a multitude of communities, are just some of the reasons why I think Walter Scott is magic, and why he rules." ― Elwood Jimmy, program coordinator for the arts organization Musagetes
" Wendy is a hilarious, sharp, and unnervingly relevant work. Bravo!" ― Jonathan Valelly, Broken Pencil
"Scott's drawing is loose and expressive, finding a tongue-in-cheek tension between the lofty language of the art world and the cartoony quality of his characters." ― Katie Skelly, The Comics Journal
"This one grows on you as one continues to read it. It is raw and filled with dozens of funny images that nonetheless depict upsetting events. It's sympathetic to the main character without ever letting her off the hook and features moments of genuine epiphany." ― Rob Clough, The Comics Journal
"Wendy drunkenly staggers through a variety of misadventures like some postmodern, MFA version of the Cathy comic strip." ― Bryan Munn, Sequential
"Walter Scott's Wendy comics present a sort-of field guide to Millennial scenesters." ― Hillary Brown, Paste
"The specifics, and the way they're gently derided, will likely be comforting to anyone under-employed and under-30 trying to make it in the arts in Canada, but its author, Walter Scott, makes Wendy's journey to figure out her place in the world relatable enough for anyone who's ever had to do the same―so basically, everyone." ― Whitney Mallett, The National Post
"Scott takes a snarky scene report, and subtly shades it into an affecting character study - how's that for art?" ― Sean Rogers, The Globe and Mail
"In many respects, this book is a modern update on Dan Clowes' classic short story Art School Confidential. Unlike Clowes, Scott isn't afraid to get extremely personal about his own life, as he invests various aspects of his life into different characters." ― Rob Clough, High-Low
"Part satire, part gleeful revel in his character's antics, Wendy is a gradually more complex look at the art world today and its expectations on artists, but also a comment on navigating the work/play quota and life itself." ― Zainab Akhtar, Publishers Weekly
"Scott is a wonderfully expressive cartoonist, specializing in laugh-out-loud, operatic reaction shots. His characters are deeply flawed, hilariously funny, and always recognizably human. Another triumph from Koyama Press." ― Rob Kirby, Panel Patter
"If you are or were ever a 20-something art school party girl, this comic will stare directly into your soul. If you aren't and never have been, that's okay too because Wendy's art show-littered search for happiness, questionable life choices and totally human tendency for failure are just a great read anyway." ― Olivia Whittick, VICE Magazine
"I have never related to a fictional character more in my life. Rendered in Scott's beautiful black-and-white illustrations, the characters speak in internet LOL-isms to mask their feelings...Scott knows that the Montreal art scene is a farce, but behind his satire is a comic acutely aware of just how tender growing pains can be." ― Chandler Levack, Maisonneuve
“I am blown away by Walter Scott’s Wendy series” ― Zadie Smith, The Guardian
About the Author
Walter Scott is an artist from Montréal. His work has been exhibited across Canada and Wendy has been serialized on Random House Canada's literary digital magazine Hazlitt.
Description:
The outrageously funny and painfully relatable satire of an aspiring artist and millennial culture
Walter Scott’s Wendy comics have become a critical sensation, with rave reviews in The New Yorker and The Guardian, and an appearance in the Best American Comics anthology. Learn Wendy’s origin story as Scott hilariously plumbs millennial culture, creative ennui, and the nepotism of the art world’s institutions.
Wendy’s an aspiring artist in a party city, and she’s in a rut. She spends her time snorting mdma in gallery bathrooms and watching Nurse Jackie reruns on her laptop while hungover. So when she’s accepted into the prestigious Flojo Island residency, Wendy vows to buckle down and get working. But during the remote, woodsy residency, Wendy and her collaborator/bff Winona put on a performance piece that becomes the centre of an art world controversy, and so Wendy returns to Montreal, getting a job in a coffee shop to make ends meet.
With Wendy, Scott launches the Wendyverse, brimming with painfully relatable characters like the back-stabbing frenemy Tina, the name-dropping Paloma, the cool drummer Wendy obsesses over, Jeff, and of course, our treasured Wendy, the hot mess we can’t live without. In blunt, laugh out loud funny vignettes with perfect punchlines, Scott illuminates the opacity of artspeak and the ceaseless anxieties plaguing a largely privileged generation.
Review
Nominated for the 2015 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel
"Even if you're neither a millennial, nor have ever been a 20-something post-art school party girl, Wendy is still a great read." ― Jessica Deer, The Eastern Door
"This endearing skewering of the contemporary art world, this needed injection of pathos and poignancy into all too-familiar, vacant, vapid archetypes & personalities, and this conjuring of a world that's relatable to a multitude of communities, are just some of the reasons why I think Walter Scott is magic, and why he rules." ― Elwood Jimmy, program coordinator for the arts organization Musagetes
" Wendy is a hilarious, sharp, and unnervingly relevant work. Bravo!" ― Jonathan Valelly, Broken Pencil
"Scott's drawing is loose and expressive, finding a tongue-in-cheek tension between the lofty language of the art world and the cartoony quality of his characters." ― Katie Skelly, The Comics Journal
"This one grows on you as one continues to read it. It is raw and filled with dozens of funny images that nonetheless depict upsetting events. It's sympathetic to the main character without ever letting her off the hook and features moments of genuine epiphany." ― Rob Clough, The Comics Journal
"Wendy drunkenly staggers through a variety of misadventures like some postmodern, MFA version of the Cathy comic strip." ― Bryan Munn, Sequential
"Walter Scott's Wendy comics present a sort-of field guide to Millennial scenesters." ― Hillary Brown, Paste
"The specifics, and the way they're gently derided, will likely be comforting to anyone under-employed and under-30 trying to make it in the arts in Canada, but its author, Walter Scott, makes Wendy's journey to figure out her place in the world relatable enough for anyone who's ever had to do the same―so basically, everyone." ― Whitney Mallett, The National Post
"Scott takes a snarky scene report, and subtly shades it into an affecting character study - how's that for art?" ― Sean Rogers, The Globe and Mail
"In many respects, this book is a modern update on Dan Clowes' classic short story Art School Confidential. Unlike Clowes, Scott isn't afraid to get extremely personal about his own life, as he invests various aspects of his life into different characters." ― Rob Clough, High-Low
"Part satire, part gleeful revel in his character's antics, Wendy is a gradually more complex look at the art world today and its expectations on artists, but also a comment on navigating the work/play quota and life itself." ― Zainab Akhtar, Publishers Weekly
"Scott is a wonderfully expressive cartoonist, specializing in laugh-out-loud, operatic reaction shots. His characters are deeply flawed, hilariously funny, and always recognizably human. Another triumph from Koyama Press." ― Rob Kirby, Panel Patter
"If you are or were ever a 20-something art school party girl, this comic will stare directly into your soul. If you aren't and never have been, that's okay too because Wendy's art show-littered search for happiness, questionable life choices and totally human tendency for failure are just a great read anyway." ― Olivia Whittick, VICE Magazine
"I have never related to a fictional character more in my life. Rendered in Scott's beautiful black-and-white illustrations, the characters speak in internet LOL-isms to mask their feelings...Scott knows that the Montreal art scene is a farce, but behind his satire is a comic acutely aware of just how tender growing pains can be." ― Chandler Levack, Maisonneuve
“I am blown away by Walter Scott’s Wendy series” ― Zadie Smith, The Guardian
About the Author
Walter Scott is an artist from Montréal. His work has been exhibited across Canada and Wendy has been serialized on Random House Canada's literary digital magazine Hazlitt.