Wendy is a hot mess, and that’s why we love her. So what happens when the beloved Canadian art-world anti-hero cleans up her act? A decade ago, Walter Scott’s first Wendy comic book, Wendy, was published. Readers instantly connected with the character’s party-girl persona, multi-page hangovers and relentless insecurities as she navigated the streets of Montreal. Some situations are particular to the time and place, while others remain painfully relatable, like smiling your way through a frenemy’s success or texting a crush and then being left on read.

In Scott’s fourth Wendy book, The Wendy Award (out July 9 from Drawn & Quarterly), we witness Wendy’s latest—and perhaps last—rock bottom, beginning with a twist no one saw coming: a global pandemic. What follows is a story that is as caustic, clever and relatable as ever but takes a deeper look at adulthood, community and the trappings of fame. It also features the ongoing adventures of other Wendy characters (and facets of Scott’s identity), like Screamo, who’s still stumbling into questionable hookups, and Winona, who’s navigating friendship with a fellow Indigenous artist. (Scott is Mohawk and grew up in Kahnawá:ke Mohawk Territory, outside of Montreal.) Scott likens it to a post-apocalyptic tale, with Wendy picking up the pieces of her life and forging her future—just as he shifts his real-life focus to his multidisciplinary-arts practice from his studio in Montreal’s Darling Foundry.

Wendy is a comic-book character who has her own celebrated meta comic, Wanda, but she’s still unhappy. Does this mean that fame doesn’t equal fulfillment?

“I used to think that if you make art and it gets popular, maybe your life gets better. But with [the success of] Wanda, Wendy feels even more alienated from the people in her life, so in a way she has written herself out of her own relationships. I don’t want to make her or myself out to be a martyr, though. Anytime you put something out into the world, you make yourself vulnerable, so you’re going to get some stuff taken away from you and you’re going to get some stuff that you didn’t have before.”

You chose to work the pandemic into this book. Did those early days make you re-evaluate the role of an artist?

“Every time we’re faced with the horrors of the world, we question the value of art. Then we stop questioning and continue to make art, and then something else terrible happens and we question the value of art again. I think that one thing that will never change is us questioning.”

Do you feel pressured to provide answers to the big issues?

Art is an act of continual unfolding, and the best kind of work is open-ended. To ask an artist to answer a question for you is [like] asking them to not be an artist at all.”

Wendy is a millennial, and she doesn’t always mesh with Gen Z. Is this generational divide unavoidable?

“It’s never the generation; it’s always young people. Because when you’re young, you’re obsessed with figuring out where you stand in relation to everyone around you. Who’s on my team? Who’s not? You’re going to be completely staunch about some things because of this anxiety, and people confuse that with politics. Gen Z is going to get old, and gen Alpha is going to become the new bogeyman of moralizing.”

Wendy’s attempts to get sober feel very of the moment. Was that deliberate?

“We’re so used to Wendy in three different modes: wanting to party, partying or hungover. I don’t think the book is about alcohol as much as [it is about] what alcohol represents, including Wendy’s ability to take care of herself. Her friends have kids and careers, and she’s realizing that the kind of life she has lived is maybe not serving her anymore. We’re watching someone get pulled, kicking and screaming, into the future.”

So is this the last we’ll see of Wendy?

“I personally am ready to move on with my life in a lot of different ways—art, writing. So it’s time for me and Wendy to say goodbye and live our separate lives. But I do think she could make a reappearance, say, 10 years from now, when she’s, like, a tired adjunct professor at an art school.”

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