From her first comics published in the Evergeen State College school
paper to her influential weekly comic strip, Ernie Pook's Comeek; from
her bestselling creative how-to memoir comic books, What It Is and
Picture This, to her novels, graphic memoirs, plays, and awards in
between, Lynda Barry has been part of the North American alternative
comics scene for thirty years.
Fans around the world rejoiced at D+Q's announcement of Blabber Blabber
Blabber: Volume 1 of Everything, which collects all of the seminal
Ernie Pook's Comeek, some of which has been out of print for decades,
and includes her earliest books, such as Girls and Boys and Big
Ideas, and features an introduction penned by Barry, complete with
photographs.
Reflective of the early 1980s before the appearance of Barry's
well-known characters Marlys and Arna, the comics in Blabber Blabber
Blabber cover the more adult subjects of bad love, bad perms, being
single, Prince, and miserable break-ups--resulting in one of the most
oft-quoted Barry sayings: Love is an exploding cigar which we all
willingly smoke.
Though Barry's early drawing style is most often described as scratchy,
her affinity for large swaths of text and narration; her fondness for
exclamation marks, angular shapes, and cursive penmanship; and her
uncanny ability to zero in on the very essence of life all within a few
panels is as present as ever in this collection.
