Lynda Barry
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Lynda Barry
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"If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile."
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Lynda Barry
| Lynda Barry | |
|---|---|
 At the 2010 Alternative Press Expo |
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| Born | January 2, 1956 Richland Center, Wisconsin |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist |
| Notable works | One! Hundred! Demons!, The Greatest of Marlys |
Lynda Barry (born January 2, 1956) is an American cartoonist and author. Barry is best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek. 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.[1] One! Hundred! Demons! (2002), a graphic novel she terms "Autobiofictionalography," uses collage and a Zen Ink painting exercise to address personal and social topics. 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.
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Contents
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Early life and education
Born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, Barry moved as a child to Washington. She is one quarter-Filipina,[2] half Irish (each parent is half Irish), and one quarter Norwegian. She attended Kimball Elementary School on Seattle's Beacon Hill and used some of her experiences there as an inspiration for her work. Barry hints that her childhood was very unhappy.[3][4] Barry′s parents divorced when she was 12, the same year in which Barry changed the spelling of her name from “Linda” to “Lynda”.[3] By age 16, Barry was working nightly as a janitor at a Seattle hospital while still attending high school.[3] Neither of Barry′s parents attended her graduation.[3]
She went to the same high school as artist Charles Burns.[4] At The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington she met fellow cartoonist Matt Groening, who first published "Ernie Pook's Comeek" in the student paper, the Cooper Point Journal, without her knowledge.[5]
Career in comics
After graduating from Evergreen she moved to Seattle. When she was 23, the Chicago Reader picked up her comic strip, enabling her to make a living from her comics alone.[6] She later moved to Chicago, Illinois.
Barry's early work was rendered with pen and had a distinctly New Wave, '80s look.
In her latest books, One! Hundred! Demons! and What It Is, she works with color and collage.
Barry has moved her line of comics primarily onto the web.[7][8][9]
Books
Barry's books include The Good Times are Killing Me, which was adapted into a musical play that ran off-Broadway; The Greatest of Marlys; The Freddie Stories; Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel; One! Hundred! Demons!, a collection of the series published in venues such as Salon.com; and, most recently, What It Is and Picture This.
Her backlist includes Everything in the World, The Fun House, It's So Magic, Naked Ladies Naked Ladies Naked Ladies (1984), Shake a Tail Feather, Down the Street, Big Ideas (1983), Come Over Come Over, Girls and Boys (1981), and My Perfect Life.
The book ONE! HUNDRED! DEMONS! first appeared as a serialized comic on Salon.com, then as a hardcover book from Sasquatch Books. According to the book's own introduction, it was produced in emulation of an old Zen painting exercise called "one hundred demons." In this exercise, the practitioner awaits the arrival of demons and then paints them as they arise in the mind. This is done, one supposes, as a form of exorcism. The demons Barry wrestles with in this book are, among others, regret, abusive relationships, self-consciousness, the prohibition against feeling hate, and her response to the results of the 2000 U.S. presidential elections.
The book contains an instructional section that encourages readers to take up the brush and follow her example.
Workshop
Barry offers a workshop titled "Writing the Unthinkable" through the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, and The Crossings in Austin, Texas, in which she teaches the process she uses to create all of her work. Barry conducts approximately 15 writing workshops around the country each year.[3] She credits her teacher, Marilyn Frasca at The Evergreen State College, with teaching her these creativity and writing techniques.
Barry is also a big fan of Mary Parker Follett's Creative Experience.
Many of these techniques appear in her book What It Is.
Other published work
Lynda Barry's spoken-word CD The Lynda Barry Experience contains a variety of her semi-autobiographical stories, such as "I Got an Accordion", "Good Grief, It's the Aswang", "The Lesbo Story", and "I Remember Mike". It also contains a variety of home-made answering machine outgoing messages.
Personal
For a time, Barry dated public-radio personality Ira Glass, who moved to Chicago in 1989 to be with her.[10]
Barry is married to Kevin Kawula, a prairie restoration expert.[11] They met each other while she was an artist-in-residence at the Ragdale Foundation and he was land manager of the Lake Forest Open Lands project in Lake Forest, Illinois.[12] They live on a farm near Footville, Wisconsin.[13]
In 1994, Barry suffered a near-fatal case of dengue fever.[3]
She is a vegetarian and says she came to it slowly.[14]
More recently, she has become an outspoken critic of wind power.[15]
On 18 January 2012, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arts Institute and Department of Art announced that Barry will be artist in residence for the spring term.[16] She will teach a class titled "What It Is: Manually Shifting the Image." and a schedule of four public lectures with special guests has been announced.
Selected publications
- Girls and Boys (1981) ISBN 0-941104-01
- Down the Street (1988) ISBN 0-06-096304-2
- The Lynda Barry Experience (1993) ISBN 1-882543-17-3
- Cruddy (2000) ISBN 0-684-83846-X
- The Good Times are Killing Me (2002) ISBN 1-57061-105-X
- What It Is (2008) ISBN 1-897299-35-4
- Picture This (2010) ISBN 1-897299-64-8
- Blabber Blabber Blabber: Volume 1 of Everything (2011) ISBN 1-77046-052-7
References
- ^ The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/09/05/bib/990905.rv103629.html.
- ^ Unst, Ariadne. "Lynda Barry – Cartoonist, Novelist, and Filipina Redhead: Reads The! Greatest! of! Marlys!". http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/Lynda.Barry.Cartoonist.htm. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f Kois, Dan (27 October 2011). "Lynda Barry Will Make You Believe In Yourself". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/magazine/cartoonist-lynda-barry-will-make-you-believe-in-yourself.html?pagewanted=1. Retrieved 27 October 2011.
- ^ a b Garden, Joe. "Interview: Lynda Barry". 8 December 1999. A.V. Club. http://www.avclub.com/articles/lynda-barry,13634/. Retrieved 27 October 2011.
- ^ Pamela Grossman (18 May 1999). "Barefoot on the Shag". Salon. http://archive.salon.com/books/int/1999/05/18/barry/index.html?. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
- ^ Joe Garden (8 December 1999). "Lynda Barry". A.V.Club. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/24257. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
- ^ Lynda Barry is moving her comics online Shaenon K. Garrity, 2007-12-06
- ^ An interview with the Washington Post's Express about Barry's life and "What It Is" 2008-10-02
- ^ Borrelli, Christoper (8 March 2009). "Being LYNDA BARRY". Chicago Tribune. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-03-08/features/0903030596_1_lynda-barry-gas-leak-shy-child. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
- ^ Michael Miner (20 November 1998). "Ira Glass's Messy Divorce: What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on 2000-06-08. http://web.archive.org/web/20000608065100/http://aan.org/display_story.phtml?ARTICLE_ID=213. Retrieved 2007-03-15. Barry does not remember the relationship fondly. The louse in her excellent One! Hundred! Demons story “Head Lice and My Worst Boyfriend” has been identified as Ira Glass. She is quoted in a 1998 Chicago Reader article as saying of Glass, “I went out with him. It was the worst thing I ever did. When we broke up he gave me a watch and said I was boring and shallow, and I wasn't enough in the moment for him, and it was over.” Glass confirms, “Anything bad she says about me I can confirm.”
- ^ Kino, Carol (2008-05-11). "How to Think Like a Surreal Cartoonist". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/arts/design/11kino.html. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
- ^ http://www.lfola.org/client_uploads/gr_winter_07.pdf
- ^ What It Is: Cartoonist Lynda Barry Speaks at Johns Hopkins
- ^ "lynda barry: "are you a recluse?"". Blair. http://www.blairmag.com/blair5/lynda/lynda19.html. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
- ^ ENGAGE Government: STATE - In My Backyard?
- ^ "Cartoonist and author Lynda Barry is spring artist in residence". UW-Madison News. 2012-01-18. http://www.news.wisc.edu/20218. Retrieved date=2012-01-20.
Further reading
- Chute, Hillary (November/December 2008). "'Somehow People Started Somehow to Actually Start to Like It, ...'". The Believer 6 (9): 47–58. Interview.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lynda Barry |
- Salon.com: Lynda Barry archive
- Marlys Magazine An unofficial web page offered on Lynda Barry's behalf
- Works by or about Lynda Barry in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Presenting at Cusp Conference 2009 (video)
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