BARRY, LYNDA 49
Barks passed away on August 26, 2000 at the age of 99 at his home in southern
Oregon.
Jason Gallagher
BARRY, LYNDA (1956–). Lynda Barry occupies a unique position in American comics,
having maintained a prolifi c career outside of the mainstream but also on the fringe
of the networks typically associated with underground or independent comics. Barry
enjoys a devoted following, especially for her comics exploring the simple pleasures and
profound diffi culties experienced by children and adolescents. More recently, her work
has turned autobiographical and made her own creative process a central focus of her
carefully designed publications.
Born in Wisconsin and raised in Washington state, Barry’s career began at Evergreen
State College when fellow student Matt Groening published her work in the school
newspaper. While living in Seattle, her distinctive four-panel comic strip, entitled
(for no apparent reason) “Ernie Pook’s Comeek,” began to appear in alternative news-
papers, earning her a passionate fan base that expanded as the strips were regularly
collected. Although her comics have never followed a single narrative, many focus on a
recurring group of children and adolescents, including the irrepressible preteen Marlys,
her older sister Maybonne, brother Freddie, and their cousins Arna and Arnold. While
kids and teenagers have been a staple of comic strips and books since their beginnings,
perhaps no other cartoonist has captured their volatile emotional lives as vividly as
Barry, who also has an uncanny ear and memory for the language of American children.
Her images, often pushed to the bottom of her word-fi lled panels, can be deceptively
simple, suggesting children’s drawings or even outsider art, but closer examination
reveals her precise control over the pace and eff ects of her material, which readers fi nd
laugh-out-loud hilarious as often as deeply moving.
Barry’s early strips, collected in Girls and Boys (1981) and Big Ideas (1983), both
published by Th e Real Comet Press, focus on romantic relationships between young
adults. Everything in the World (HarperPerennial, 1986) continues in the same vein, but
includes strips that marked Barry’s emerging focus on childhood experiences (which
readers often assumed must be autobiographical). With Th e Fun House (1984), and
continuing through Down the Street (1986), Come Over, Come Over (1990), My Pe r-
fect Life (1992), and It’s So Magic (1994), all published by HarperPerennial, Barry hit
her stride with comics largely (though never exclusively) focused on her regular cast of
characters and drawing upon her intense recollection of the joys and terrors of grow-
ing up. Th e Freddy Stories (1999), from new publisher Sasquatch Books, is an often
harrowing account of Barry’s principal male character. Th e Greatest of Marlys! (2002)
collects strips featuring Barry’s most popular character, an unpopular girl whose vivid
imagination and healthy ego sustain her.
Barry also created a unique work, Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies! (Real
Comet Press, 1984), which brilliantly combines a children’s coloring book, a “pin-up”
deck of playing cards, and a memoir on the female body. Among other things, the
