ISBN 978-1-0696926-8-9
5.5x8.25 inches / black and white / 36 pages / $15
Fall 2026 / North American rights
When you are pregnant, you learn something new and mildly horrifying about your body just about every week, and no matter how alien or painful or unsettling, almost everything is considered “normal.”
Up The Duff is a short collection of all the journal comics I had the energy to draw during my own pregnancy, which is an experience I am extremely grateful I got to have once, and equally grateful that it will only be the one time.
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"These are extremely funny and good???"
- Keezy Young, Hello Sunshine
From the author -
Q: How did the book come about?
We were at the tail end of lockdowns and we had just moved in with my parents for the summer while we looked for a house and prepared for parenthood. My brother had also moved in so it was a pretty hectic time between five adults at home, house-hunting, baby prep, and working really hard while I still could. I think my pregnant ass painted like three or four murals that summer.
These little cartoons and comics were a way to keep myself sane and complain in a funny way that didn’t drive everyone crazy.
Q: Why this book and why now?
I’ve always wanted to compile them, but babies and toddlers take up a lot of time! It’s only just now, about five years later, that I was able to get around to redrawing the rough ones and putting it together. Truth be told, I wanted to make it like three times as long by filling out the stuff I never got around to drawing, but I’m happy with what I have here, so I can firmly place the other ideas on the “maybe someday” shelf.
Q: What do you hope people get out of reading this?
Most portrayals of pregnancy in TV and movies are incredibly quaint in comparison to the real thing, and I was shocked at how I knew practically nothing about it going in. Your bones and teeth get weak because the baby is stealing the ingredients for its own skeleton and teeth. You genuinely become stupid for a while. I stopped being able to do crosswords, something I had been doing every day for years. I had to stop singing in my choir because I couldn’t breathe enough anymore. I can have lactose again, even now half a decade later! It’s insane that nobody actually teaches you what growing a baby in your body actually entails until you’re in the middle of actually doing it. So, I guess that. But mostly I just want laughs.
