Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.

Lynda Barry

Lynda Barry (born January 2, 1956) is an American cartoonist and 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 "Autobifictionalography" 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

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