Lynda Barry Books

When I heard that Lynda Barry, one of my comics artist heroes, had a new book I rushed out to get it. It's big and beautiful and bound with a hardcover that begs to be cherished. I devoured it in a day, but will go back to it many, many times as it's filled with densely collaged images that inspire as well as activities that promote creation of your own. Part philosophical discussion on image making and why we do it, part "how to" on writing or drawing your own stories, it is also sprinkled with autobiographical comics of Barry's own artistic journey.
This is a fantastic book for anyone interested in the process of making art or writing stories. For those too scared to let themselves create, even Barry shares her fears and neurotic tendencies to judge her work, but gives prompts that help those in search of that "strange floating feeling making lines on paper" can only give. She encourages you to just stay in motion, and no need for precious materials - most of this book was made with ink on yellow legal pads and each page is filled with line drawings of sea creatures, birds, extravagant patterns, and images that provide a glimpse into her crazy creative mind, and make you want to go make stuff.
My favorite page is when she posits a hypothetical scenario where you open an old can of pork and beans and a genie offers to release you from your own can. "If a genie offered to free you from a dull, canned life, what would you say?" If you say, Yes please!, then go get this book. It may not instantly make you an award-winning author or acclaimed artist, but it will help you get one step closer to living "out of the can".

I've given five copies of this book (so far) to friends and loved ones. I wish everyone would read this book. The world would be a better place.
It's a great book about creativity, the imagination, self-expression, memoir--authentic and beautiful. You can't help but love Lynda Barry.

"What It Is" is one of the most surprisingly encouraging and inspiring books I've come across. Good job, LyndaB!

I don't think I've ever sat down and read straight through a book of writing exercises. And, at a very basic level, that's what "What It Is" is. And I sat down and read through the whole thing, while taking time to digest it. It's about writing, drawing, images, memory, creativity, a magic cephalopod, and Lynda Barry's life. All done on a yellow legal pad of paper.

This is a great book for anyone who's ever felt stuck writing or drawing (or just in the creative process). Barry's collage work in the first half of the book gets you to ask yourself questions about imagery and memory. The second half has writing exercises and tips for how to make more for yourself. They're excellent and I can't wait to start using them. It's also probably the only time I'll ever cry over instructions for a writing exercise.

If there's anything that takes away from the book, it's that I wanted to see more about Barry's life. The short passages about her childhood and education are very interesting, but take up only a small portion of the book. It's somewhat depressing to hear that her comics became such a source of concern/depression for her, but I can understand that feeling of it becoming work and the pressure to only make "good" art. And I love her moments where she's talking with her husband and thinking of all the stuff she forgets, but goes over conversation she had years ago where she said awful things.

Okay, that's my awkward ending... go read this book.

I love this book and have already bought 3 more as gifts. I'm pretty sure that if I just walk around with this book or sit looking at it in coffeshops, bars and car repair waiting rooms, cool things are going to happen to me, mysterious images, strangers, forgotten childhood toys and monsters will come to visit. How can one book be so practical and so mystical at the same time? I'm so grateful to Lynda Barry and the magic cephalapod for making this book.

.....its because you never heard of Lynda Barry......if you grew up in the 60's and/or were on the wrong side of the tracks and/or were not of the popular crowd OR knew anybody of the above-described groups, you will enjoy this book (and her others). They really bring forth memories and emotion....catharis, baby!

Linda Barry nails tweener angst. And her drawings are so different from anyone else's, they're mesmerizing.

I read the "Marlys" comicstrip back when it appeared in DC's City Paper. Marlys, her friends, her mother are drawn in gorgeous and grotesque panel-cartoon style. Barry's characters are bizarre yet familiar. The angst is universal. Think Gidget on acid: a super gift book to delight a funky friend.

If your a long time fan or have never heard of Lynda Berry this is a book you must own. For the first timer the drawings might seem alittle rough,(but you get past that real quick and realize its perfect)just like the stories about Marlys. I love Lynda Berry and her work. Iv followed the stories of Marlys since the early 80's. I can so relate to Marlys and her environment and I think many others will too. Im not a writer just a huge fan so I hope you all will give it a peek and find out for yourselves. Matt Groening (creator of Simpsons) says "Lynda Berry rocks".

Wow! Number one!! This book captures the feeling of childhood in an amazingly touching fashion.

It won't take you long to finish this book of vignettes that weave together into a complete story. Yet, it is a book of incredible wisdom and courage, seen through the eyes of a young girl who lives in a neighborhood that is settling in after "white flight." Through the narrator's perspective, Lynda Barry palpably demonstrates the impact of racial integration and tension via the friendship between a young white girl and young black girl. Is such a friendship possible, when you have a "no Negroes allowed inside" rule at your house? Or when you visit the projects with your friend, and a boy calls her "Unca Tom" merely for being with a white girl? And what happens when girls grow up and graduate out of grade school?

Lynda Barry has the voice of the young girl down perfectly, expressing the things that young girls think and worry about, including the angst and dreams of fitting in and belonging. Bittersweet and compelling, I highly recommend this simple coming-of-age tale.

I don't know how Ira Glass steeled himself to enter this cavernous beast. Somebody give him a medal for bravery!

I teach a course on teaching music for children (at the college level). I use this book to get students thinking about the deep ways that music impacts our lives. Situations from family to school music, private to public, and informal to formal are all present, and Barry's wonderful attention to detail brings each to life in a way that make my students talkative.

Of course, I wouldn't use it if it weren't a wonderful novel as well. It is. The story that is told is gripping, and my students love reading it.

Barry just knows how to get into the psyche of kids, adolescents, anyone under the age of 17, it seems. This book is a quick read, but a delicious one. Barry writes her characters' voices in as understated and realistic pieces of life, and she does what she's so good at doing: she puts readers in a space in which they're none too comfortable, and yet they can't seem to shake the familiar feelings of their own childhood horrors and experiences. This book is unsettling and slightly worrisome, and also truthful and wonderful, just as children often are.

This is the book that got me started on my Lynda Barry addiction. I stumbled on to this book by fortuitous accident. It's brilliant. It is simple in its style with a reach deep into the heart of complex feelings and issues. While not as riveting as Cruddy, it is more moving and realistic. I hope Lynda Barry continues to produce work of this quality. One Hundred Demons is also extremely good. Her fiction is great literature on a transcendent level.

OK, here's the deal, if you wanna get down with your bad self and figure out if your childhood really did suck, read any or all of Lynda Barry's books. Not only will she prove to you that it did suck, but she will also show you that everybody else's childhood sucked too! However, she will also demonstrate to you, in a very amusing way, that we were all, mostly, too dumb to let it get in the way or really bother us. In fact, many of us will relive the pain and pleasure through Lynda's therapy and will actually enjoy it.
So, do yourself a favour and read all her stuff. And if you don't get her books, then, not only did your childhood suck but your adulthood is even worse! Yolo tendo! Namaste Leenda Namaste!!!!

I completely agree with San Diego reviewer below. Why is it out of print? Lame!!! She (lynda B.) is so good and Marlys so wonderful. Joy and pathos, that is what is here.

Lynda Barry saved my life with Ernie Pook's Comeek when I lived in Washington DC, and in return I feel obligated to purchase every book she's ever written. Not that that's an awful thing. The continuing saga of Marlys and Maybonne keeps me in tears, both from laughter and from sadness. The only reason this only gets four instead of five stars is that I'm starting to get a little burned out on them. Barry is so precise in tales of growing up, she's in a league with Groening, Judge, et al, in perfectly capturing, in a crude drawing, such common elements to our childhood as cereal boxes, bad haricuts, and boys who smoke. I highly recommend any Lynda Barry collection, and this chapter does not disappoint.

This is an absolutely amazing work. If you can get your hands on it it is definately worth the effort. I first read it a few years ago and must have read it about six times since then.

It deals with love, friends, family, homosexuality, and life in general. I found it one of the most true and beautiful peices I've ever read.

This super duper book is a compilation of Lynda Barry's comics about two weird sisters named Marlys and Maybonne. Some sections are told through older sister Maybonne's diary and they usually involve the dramas of junior high, like moving back to your old school and finding out that your best friend has told everyone that you've become a lesbian slut. My favorite sections are the ones told through Marlys' eyes. She writes book reports about bats, and draws her own comics about her sister's favorite things. Marlys' drawings of people and the caption bubbles coming out of their mouths are so creative and authentically first graderish.

Why oh why is this book out of print? I checked it out of my library, but maybe we can start a revolution and bring it back.

Thank you, Lynda, for sharing your talent and emotion with us. This book let me know I was not insane when I felt like crap and let me (no MADE me) cry about it. I also shared Maybonne's recovery and continued confusion and frustration with the jerks of the world. Read this book and everything else Lynda Barry does!

Much like the content of her "ernie pook's comeek", Lynda Barry's "My Perfect Life" is more than just a cartoon, it is literature. The book sucks you into the lives of its complex and appealing characters until you are experiencing and caring about what happens to them. Sometimes hilarious and sometimes sad, this is a wonderful book.

Lynda Barry comics are the best. That's it. This whole book (and also Come Over, Come Over) blew my mind when I read them and made me really happy that someone could make the horible crap I was feeling seem actually funny, sometimes in a kind of sick way, but I read the books over and over and they never failed to please

You will think that Lynda has been reading your diary, when you were sure you had the key in your locket. You will see that she understands your every whim because she has been through childhood as her reincarnated self so many times that she can see the inside of your skin and learned how to draw all the veins, the fascinating glorious horror of them, of popping pimples and peeling glue from your palms, falling in like and off your bike, she will make you shudder as earwax, scabs, and floating fish, with the same feeling as the urge you get to colour everything around you in, even in your office pants. In this way reading her work is like being becoming absorbed in a page of someone's first scribbles. You will know that Lynda has been reading your diary, and then you might actually smile, at how she deserves access to it becuase you just have to admit that she can make more out of it than you can

I stumbled upon this incredible book in the used section of a local comic book store. I'd already read two of her other collections of pictures and stories and was totally siked when I saw this one. It really blew my mind, man. I mean, its a totally awesome experience, like blowing coke out of your nose or farting in the middle of class when its real quiet and everybody just dies of pure laughter. Its sad too, and serious as death. Lynda Barry is my eternal soul sister and she doesn't even know it. I only share this book with my favorite people in the world. Its one of my secret treasures. Its a totally radical and awesome story, man, you gotta believe me, man, its like, its like the best book ever. I love Lynda Barry.

This is a work of genius. "Now, how can you say that about such a book?" Well, have a look at it first. Barry's observations may be couched in terms of her odd protagonists, Marlys and Maybonne, but they are no less telling, cutting, emotive or perceptive for that. Never have I come across an evocation of adolescence which comes close to her achievement here. She manages to touch on love, death, commitment, family, joy (and even, very lightly, incest), and have fresh things to say about each. The scenes involving school and the love-rivalry between the sisters is unique in cartooning, and perhaps in the wider realm of illustrated literature.

I picked up this book on a whim & I'm glad I did--it only took reading one or two of the (cartoon) frames for me to buy it. It's a down-to-earth but funny trip! It is just funny! Reminds me of when I was 14 & all the crazy things I went through-guys, siblings, teachers, parents. The two main characters are so quirky, but you gotta love them! It's like you're let into their minds & you know every little thing they're thinking. Seriously, this book is funny & insightful, & good to read on a late night at home when you're alone & the rest of the world is asleep. I can't wait to read Lynda Barry's other books.

If you know who Lynda Barry is, you don't need to read this review. You either own a copy of this cd, or want one badly.

Lynda Barry's WONDERFUL collection of stories, songs, and DROP-DEAD-FUNNY answering machine messages, is easily one of my most treasured recordings. I've owned my copy for years and still play it regularly on my iPod.

Lynda is better known for her books, plays, and syndicated comic strip, Ernie Pook's Comeek. Like her other work, the stories here are filled with a rare authenticity and humanity. She can make you laugh and then suddenly tear up as you recognise something from your own childhood, long forgotten.

I sincerely consider her one of the most important American artists of my generation. I attended her first book signing back in 1981 and have remained one of her many loyal fans. I would also encourage anyone to check out her books "Cruddy" and "The Good Times Are Killing Me". The collections of her comic strip are a joy too.

If you like This American Life, David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, or just excellent story telling, you will be so glad to own this cd.

Lynda Barry is the absolute Queen of the entire Universe and everything surrounding it. Her stories captivate like the juciest of gossip, and conjure goosebumps at just the right times. She doesn't mind hittin' hard, but picks ya back up, dusts you off, and even makes you cry from laughin' before she strikes again with the suddenness of an ice cold shower. Shivers, pure shivers are her main form of communication. She totally rocks the entire universe from top to bottom with the sweet soul sounds of the seventies.

Lynda Barry is one of the great storytellers of our time. Her cartoon anthologies are not to be missed. This cassette contains about 12 true ("except the ones that are big, honking lies") stories of her life, mostly her youth. Each one contains Barry's characteristic combination of pathos and belly-laughs. I think I've listened to this cassette about 20 times, and it never fails to entertain me. Buy it, buy it, buy it!

this collection of cartoons is amazingly funny. i have read it over and over and am still amused. it offers a hilarious view of childhood from four main characters. buy two- one for yourself, and one for a friend

Lynda Barry's messy, amateurish drawings evoke childhood better than just about anything else I've read. She risks overparticularity in describing the specific time and place when she grew up, but evades it consistently because she has such a great eye and ear for the things that make childhood experience universal. Anyone will find things to recognize and identify with (and laugh at, of course) in this and her other books.

Even her flaws -- the crude drawing style, her lapses of grammar and spelling -- help to get her point across. You couldn't call her stuff childlike -- it's too sophisticated for that -- but it is reminiscent of childhood, without ever being condescending or imitative.

While most of her work is clearly intended as humor (and much of it is indeed howlingly funny), there is a haunting, sweet sadness of tone about a great deal of it too. Barry's not afraid to tackle serious incidents of loss, parental indifference, failure in school, and getting in trouble, but the kids in her stories seem always to take the bad things that happen to them in stride, with aplomb -- as children so often really do.

I bought this in high school when it came out [edit: it turns out that's not true, it came out in 1982, and I bought it later, in 1986] [whoops, it turns out I was right in the first place; the reason the book has copyright years going back to 1982 is because it collects comics for those years]. My copy is tattered and literally falling apart from being read so much. It will make you laugh, it might make you cry, I hope it makes you smile, a lot. It's just wonderful.

This is Lynda's fourth collection of Ernie Pook's Comeek strips and covers the worlds of Endless Love, Growing Up, Relationships and Problems. As Nicole Hollander said on the back cover, "Anyone who does not laugh at Dr. Lynda J. Barry must be dead".

This book is where you will find the classic strips about Rahoolio, "Would you like to drink more of my pee, Cezer?" and "The Fun House" (later reused as a title to another strip collection).

The expected elements of uncles, Ratfink, teen parties and waiting for that phone call are all present and mostly drawn in pen (before Lynda switched to her current style using mostly brush).

Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the development of Lynda Barry as an artist (pre-Marlys / Maybonne and the gang) or for anyone who needs a good laugh, an uncomfortable squirm or both.

In Lynda Barry's collection of comics, Big Ideas, she explainsthe mysteries of life - from love, death, heaven & hell, tofull-scale nuclear holocaust with the simple brilliance of a scientist and the wit of your best friend. Her vivid drawings add an uproarious dimension to each story. In one scene, a doctor visits a woman in her sleep. He clutches her diagnosis entitled "the Awful Truth", and tells her that "not only do you have cancer of everything, you are also a total failure and you did leave the coffee pot plugged in at work and the whole place is on fire right now." Ms. Barry grabs onto her readers worst fears and shakes them in front of us guffawing at them. She also pinpoints our greatest passions and makes us yearn for more. Though out-of-print, this book is well worth the Amazon search as it could very well change your life - or at least make your day.