Lynda Barry - Cartoonist
Looking at the work of Lynda Barry + Writing Exercises
Lynda Barry (born 2ndJan 2, 1956) is an American cartoonist, graphic novelist and prize-winning author. One of the most successful non-mainstream American cartoonists, Barry is perhaps best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek. Barry's cartoons often view family life from the perspective of pre-teen girls from the wrong side of the tracks – Arna (the sensitive, freckled observer) and the cousins with whom she lives; pig-tailed Marlys (gifted, exuberant, snarky, and spastic); and the older Maybonne (concerned with social justice, music, makeup, hairdos and boys) and Freddie (gay, sweet, bullied, fascinated with bugs and monsters); but she often ventures far afield from this, such as in her strips featuring a Beat Poet poodle named Fred Milton. She has also produced novels. She garnered attention with her book The Good Times are Killing Me about an interracial friendship between two young girls. The book was made into a play. Her novel "Cruddy" (2000) was well received. "One! Hundred! Demons!" (2002) a graphic novel she terms "Autobiofictionalography" uses collage and a Zen Ink painting exercise to address personal and social topics that have been demonized. "What It Is" (2008) is a graphic novel that is part memoir, part collage and part workbook in which Barry instructs her readers in methods to open up their own creativity. "What It Is" won the 2009 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work.
Memory
Focusing first on memory, we embark on a journey into the unexpected. Memories come as uncontrollably as dreams—you may end up remembering things you haven’t thought of since you were a kid. Then we move into fiction. “It’s a way of writing that’s freaky, vivid, and a lot of fun,” Barry says.
Barry writes, “When people try to write stories they tend to drag the stories behind them. They think about the story, question it and try to arrange it into something understandable, which is no fun at all! It makes a person feel exhausted and cranky. The best way to write is to let the image pull you. You should be water-skiing behind it, not dragging it like a barge. Writing should take you for a ride.”
What is an image? – What it is…!
READ MORE OF THIS ESSAY HERE