Cortona and surroundings : history, the city, museums, archaeology, churches, around of Cortona, tourist information, city map, hotels, restaurants /

In Fart School, Mel leaves her small hometown of Darwin to get her art degree at a school in Brisbane. Though she wanted to complete a degree in animation, she had to enroll in visual arts. She posts her work on Deviant Art, creates zines that she sells around town, and posts her stickers wherever she can. Her family helps her move into bare-bones student housing, and she meets various other students in her program as well. Mel starts her visual-arts course and quickly must deal with figuring out her artistic vision and how to function independently from her family. Even though Mel was extremely excited to start art school and pursue her passions, the school's campus is literally crumbling around her, and her classes are demanding in a way she didn't expect. Stringer's work is colorful and engaging, especially when she switches the perspective to follow the landscape through other eyes to display the city and the campus. The book is a relatable exploration of the difficulties of making it in the art world.

Surprisingly poignant given its flip title, Stringer's sincere and witty debut memoir recounts her early 2000s decision to leave her small hometown in Australia to attend art school in big-city Brisbane. She hopes to become a professional cartoonist, but upon discovering she's too late to enroll in the animation program, Stringer reluctantly opts to study visual arts, where she encounters a faculty and student body who amplify her self-doubt and anxiety about her chosen career path. Struggling with coursework she finds uninspiring and sparring with instructors (who are running out the clock in dilapidated facilities slated for demolition), she maintains her sanity trading zines and demo CDs with artist friends. Devotees of Dan Clowes's beloved teenage dramadies will appreciate Stringer's neurotic, angsty worldview as she tries to find her way in the adult world. Though this is most likely to strike a chord with actual past and present art school comrades, any reader who's ever felt like a fish out of water will be drawn in by the irresistible loose cartoony art style and cheery color palette. This funny portrait of the artist as a young adult is a charmer. (Mar.)