Lynda Barry

Girlhood through the Looking Glass

Susan E. Kirtley

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781628469578
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Comics & Graphic Novels Literaturkritik

Best known for her long-running comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek, illustrated fiction ( Cruddy, The Good Times Are Killing Me ), and graphic novels ( One! Hundred! Demons! ), the art of Lynda Barry (b. 1956) has branched out to incorporate plays, paintings, radio commentary, and lectures. With a combination of simple, raw drawings and mature, eloquent text, Barry's oeuvre blurs the boundaries between fiction and memoir, comics and literary fiction, and fantasy and reality. Her recent volumes What It Is (2008) and Picture This (2010) fuse autobiography, teaching guide, sketchbook, and cartooning into coherent visions. In Lynda Barry: Girlhood through the Looking Glass, author Susan E. Kirtley examines the artist's career and contributions to the field of comic art and beyond. The study specifically concentrates on Barry's recurring focus on figures of young girls, in a variety of mediums and genres. Barry follows the image of the girl through several lenses—from text-based novels to the hybrid blending of text and image in comic art, to art shows and coloring books. In tracing Barry's aesthetic and intellectual development, Kirtley reveals Barry's work to be groundbreaking in its understanding of femininity and feminism.

1

Outcasts and Odd Ducks

I don’t know. I’ve always been an odd duck. No matter what situation I’m in, I’ve always been kind of an odd duck. A really friendly odd duck who tries—if I’m just nice enough to people, they’ll leave me alone.

—LYNDA BARRY, personal interview

Lynda Barry defines herself as an “odd duck” in an already outcast field—a woman in the male-dominated field of comics, a Filipino-Irish-Norwegian amongst a largely white group of artists, and a cartoonist who makes her audience cry just as often as laugh.¹ Yet Barry also frequently indicates her preference for outcasts, noting that she would rather “hang around oddballs and losers because they’re more interesting and they’re always better in bed.”² How does Barry’s position as an outsider influence her style and subject matter as an artist? To better understand this odd duck and her fascination with images of girlhood, it is important to look to her role within the comic world—as a woman, as a minority, and as a descendant of the Alternative comic generation.

An Outsider in Comic Land

Barry came of age in a critical time for comic artists—a time of great change and growth—and she cites key figures of the Underground and Alternative movements such as Art Spiegelman, R. Crumb, Charles Burns, and Matt Groening as sources of encouragement and friendship.³ Despite her connections, Barry strongly maintains that she is, once again, an outsider, even within this group that defines itself in opposition to the mainstream. And while her work bears some similarities to these compatriots, Barry also demonstrates significant points of departure.

Scholars such as Robert Harvey, Joseph Witek, and Scott McCloud present excellent chronicles of comics history; and a particularly helpful source in outlining recent comics history, Charles Hatfield’s Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, offers a portrait of the Underground comix movement of the 1960s and ‘70s, which arose in defiance of the Comics Code Authority and which prefaced Barry’s entry onto the comics scene. Hatfield maintains that the “countercultural comix movement—scurrilous, wild and liberating, innovative, radical, and yet in some ways narrowly circumscribed—gave rise to the idea of comics as an acutely personal means of artistic exploration and self-expression” (ix). This approach to expressing the self certainly paved the way for nontraditional cartoonists like Barry, though the Underground movement did, for the most part, often seem to focus on challenging the strictly moralistic dictates of “the Code” through macho flights of fancy. Witek argues that while these Underground comic artists “created works in the sequential art medium of unparalleled vigor, virtuosity, and spontaneity” (51), “the unrestrained satire of the undergrounds did at times descend to sophomoric in group smugness” (53). Crumb, one figure from the Underground movement frequently lauded for his innovation and honesty and lambasted for his misogynistic, narcissistic tendencies, made an enormous impression on many working in comics, including Lynda Barry, as well as numerous comics creators focusing on childhood and girlhood.

Barry references Crumb, in particular, as someone she emulated in her early years, although she found his subject matter distinctly unsettling. While she copied his drawings earnestly and found his style “beautiful,” she said, “The sex stuff was scary to me” (qtd. in Schappell 52). Barry remembered, in an interview with Hillary Chute, “What R. Crumb gave me was this feeling that you could draw anything” (50). Barry further acknowledges happily imitating cult artist and hot-rod aficionado Big Daddy Roth’s rodent caricature “Rat Fink” and remembers of Roth, “Something about his embrace of ugliness … made me feel freedom” (qtd. in Schappell 52). Barry drew from numerous sources, not just artists associated with the Underground movement, as she developed her style, including, as she explained in an interview with Joe Garden, “Dr. Seuss, Don Martin, Dave Berg, R. Crumb, Tom Robbins, Grimm’s fairy tales, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Anderson’s fairy tales, hippie music, Peter Maxx, the Broadway musical Hair, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!, The Family Circus, Archie, Nancy.” Out of this eclectic group, Barry particularly appreciated Bill Keane’s The Family Circus.

The comic, created by Bill Keane and continued with the help of his son Jeff, debuted in 1960 and appears in daily newspapers as a single, circular panel generally depicting a humorous scene from family life. The Sunday format deviates somewhat from the small, circular panel, but usually retains a singular, rectangular panel, and all Family Circus cartoons share a wholesome, moral outlook that emphasizes the importance of family and Christian values. In the introduction to The Best American Comics 2008, guest editor Barry reflected, “I didn’t love The Family Circus because it was funny. I don’t think I noticed or cared about that part at all. I loved the very world of it, a world that I could watch through a portal edged in ink every day when I opened the newspaper. It was a circle I wanted to climb through” (xiii). The Family Circus, then, provided Barry with solace, a way of escape, much as drawing did as a child. Therefore, while undoubtedly inspired by the freedom and audacity of the Underground comics, it was one of the most wholesome, straight-laced cartoons that truly influenced Barry to create her own comics and to create a window into another world.

Barry continued drawing throughout her youth, concurrent with the growth of Underground comics, but it wasn’t until the 1980s and the creation of what some call the Alternative movement that Barry began to showcase her work and to cultivate a wider audience. It was in the 1980s that the Underground movement began to stagnate, giving way to the Alternative movement in comics, and while Barry herself once again resists labeling, she does acknowledge being a part of “the generation right after R. Crumb. Not generation maybe age-wise, but of comics.”⁴ Roger Sabin notes, “The 1980s and 1990s were indeed a kind of golden age for nonconformist titles; among them were comics that tackled topics never covered before, and which pushed back artistic expectations” (175). At this time Barry clearly challenged topics once considered taboo in her comic art, yet Barry stalwartly resists any sort of connection with the Alternative movement. During a personal interview Barry argued: “I don’t feel like I am in any group with comics, certainly in the mainstream.”⁵ How does one characterize her work? Barry argues that “being called anything (except ‘Princess Kitty’) bugs me,”⁶ and her style and her genre frequently shift, making it difficult to state generalizations about her work. Despite her rejection of labels, Barry does share an interest in expanding the boundaries of comic art to explore challenging topics and terrain with fellow comic artists associated with the Underground and Alternative movements. Still, while Barry’s childlike comic art style from Ernie Pook has become something of a trademark, and the figure of Marlys with her exuberant pigtails and cat-eye glasses now stands as a cult hero of sorts, Barry doesn’t particularly fit neatly with her contemporary comic artists. Barry doesn’t create “graphic novels” like Charles Burns, nor does her style align itself with New Yorker cartoonists like Roz Chast. Rather, Barry constantly changes styles, techniques, tools, and genres, never quite settling in any one place; and her ever-evolving means of expression frustrates any attempts at classification. While Barry herself resists categorization, she does share at least a common interest with other female comic artists who concentrate on girls and girlhood in their work.

The Tomboy and Wimmen’s Comix

A glance at the comics page in a newspaper or at the shelf in the local comic book store quickly illustrates that women are in the minority in the comics world. Furthermore, the 2005–2006 art show “Masters of American Comics” didn’t feature a single woman, begging the question, When women do contribute, are they recognized? Do female cartoonists have a different sensibility? And how does Barry, a self-described tomboy, fit in? Barry firmly believes that boys aren’t “keeping girls out. I can tell you for a fact no one’s ever kept me out, and I can tell you that most of my friends in art and drawing have been guys.”⁷ Barry does not recognize a sexist boys’ club atmosphere in her professional world. Rather, Barry theorizes that boys mature at a slower rate and therefore have more time to cultivate their draftsmanship, whereas girls are quickly drawn into the pressures of adulthood at a younger age. In an interview Barry explained, “So I feel like boys, just biologically, have a longer period of time, and that, if you notice, it’s not just a boy’s club, but it’s a boy’s club of socially not-forward people…. It’s nerds.”⁸ How did Barry end up amongst these nerds? She speculates it might have been the result of transgressing gender roles as a girl. Barry didn’t get caught in the societal trap of abandoning her art for the adult world because, she says, “I was always a tomboy and I was never successful at the girl’s stuff, the girly-girl stuff.”⁹ It is an interesting fact that Barry, a woman who failed at “girl’s stuff,” would later focus so intently on the lives and experiences of girls. Barry’s representations of self clearly struggle with what she calls “girlness” in her comic strip, yet she resists the idea that any misogynist influence keeps women from participating in the comic art world.

Barry is not the only “tomboy” female creating comic art, and although it might not be apparent from the “Masters of American Comics” exhibit, female cartoonists have demonstrated their own take on the world throughout the history of comics. Scholar and comic artist Trina Robbins’s work has been instrumental in bringing to light the history of women in comics in her many books, including A Century of Women Cartoonists (1993), From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of Women’s Comics from Teens to Zines (1999), The Great Women Cartoonists (2001), and Nell Brinkley and the New Woman in the Early 20th Century (2001). As a result of scholars like Robbins, the role women played in the history of comic art is slowly coming to light.

At the time Barry entered Evergreen State College in 1974, women were not well represented in mainstream or Alternative comics, and she had few female comic artists as role models. However, a group of determined female comic artists set out to make a name and a place for their work. As male comic artists rebelled against the narrow dictates of the Comics Code in the Underground movement, and as the Alternative artists took up the challenge to further stretch the form and content of comic art, female comic artists struggled to find a space of their own. Robbins, an active participant in establishing “womyn’s comics” recalled:

Sadly, most of the male underground cartoonists understood as little about the new women’s movement as the newspapers did, and reacted to what they perceived as a threat by drawing comix filled with graphic violence directed mostly at women. People—especially women people—who criticized this misogyny were not especially welcome in this alternative version of the old boys’ club, and were not invited into the comix being produced. (From Girls 85)

When a young Lynda Barry was cultivating her own drawing style and imitating what she saw as pioneer R. Crumb’s beautiful aesthetic, she most likely did not condemn outright the Alternative comix pioneer’s depictions of women. Yet Barry obviously responded to and was frightened by his graphic and often brutal subject matter; as she recalls, “It was really hard-core because the sex stuff was very frightening” (qtd. in Chute, “Interview” 50). Despite any misgivings or apprehension gleaned from reading these Underground and Alternative comix, Barry maintains that when her career did begin to blossom in the 1980s, she wasn’t hindered by a “no girls allowed” atmosphere.

However, some scholars suggest that women entering the field in the 1960s and 1970s might have had a more difficult time breaking into the comics field than Barry did. In his History of Comic Art Roger Sabin echoes Robbins’s reflections, noting that women at the time were forced to find their own way, apart from much of the Underground comix movement:

These early women cartoonists were using their strips to protest about a number of related issues: obliquely, about being excluded from the male-dominated underground (especially the big anthologies, which they claimed had a ‘Boys Only’ atmosphere) and about the sexism that was rife in the movement (particularly comix by Wilson, Crumb and Spain); and more directly about women’s politics generally—subject matter included rape, sex, abortion, babies, working conditions and housework. (105)

In 1972 two separate groups took action to provide more outlets and more exposure for female comic artists, resulting in the anthologies Tits ‘n’ Clits and Wimmen’s Comics. Scott McCloud suggests that these all-female anthologies “were raw, emotionally honest, politically charged and sexually frank” (Reinventing 102). Furthermore, “These same qualities, nearly 30 years later, are still present in the works of many leading female cartoonists” (Reinventing 102). However, McCloud notes that contemporary female cartoonists

though a minority still—are far too numerous and their work far to varied, to classify as any one kind of “movement.” With years to accumulate large and consistent bodies of work in everything from autobiography to science fiction to urban parables to high fantasy, the worlds of individual creators now far outweigh the novelty of their gender for all but the most close-minded readers. (Reinventing 102)

In the years since women like Robbins articulated a space for their work in comics, many more women have taken up the call, creating works fantastic and familiar. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that women comic artists, whether inspired or incensed by the male artists of the Underground and Alternative movements, frequently focused on close examinations of what it is to be a woman and a girl. Hillary Chute suggests that the work of women comic artists “exemplifies how graphic narratives can envision an everyday reality of women’s lives, which, while rooted in the personal, is invested and threaded with collectivity, beyond prescriptive models of alterity or sexual difference” (“Comics as Literature” 459). Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Mary Fleener, Phoebe Gloeckner, Debbie Drechsler, and Julie Doucet share with Lynda Barry a place in time as female comic artists working and gaining recognition in the 1980s and 1990s. And though their styles are diverse, they also share key influences as well as interest in depicting female experiences.

Kominsky-Crumb (b. 1948) trained as a painter and worked closely with Underground Comics Artists and was encouraged by prominent figures such as Kim Deitch and her eventual husband, Robert Crumb. She was also an important figure in encouraging female comics through anthologies such as Wimmen’s Comics and Twisted Sisters and edited the series Weirdo, in addition to creating the comic Dirty Laundry with her husband. Though many know her as Crumb’s wife, she was creating her own autobiographical comics well before they met and stated in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that she “had a big influence on his style of recording his life.” Her 2009 graphic memoir Need More Love tells Kominsky-Crumb’s life story amidst the backdrop of the Underground comix movement. Kominsky-Crumb focuses primarily on the lives of women, in particular, her own life, creating witty, exaggerated narratives in which droll text pairs with exaggerated images of large, curvy women to tell humorous and sometimes grotesque stories of the self. Barry shares with Kominsky-Crumb an interest in the autobiographical, as well as a willingness to poke fun at herself in her work. While Kominsky-Crumb suggests she had a strong influence on her husband, many prominent female comic artists of the 1980s and 1990s, including Barry, cite Robert Crumb as a strong inspiration.

Mary Fleener (b. 1951), like Kominsky-Crumb, creates autobiographical comics focused on her life as a woman. Fleener utilizes her cubist-inspired style, “cubismo,” in many comics, including the collection Life of the Party (1996) and the Slutburger series. Fleener’s bold, geometrically influenced aesthetic creates a particular eye-catching, kinetic style that alternates striking, frenetic, black-and-white cubist panels with more traditional representational panels, resulting in a fascinating mix of fantastic and realistic. As with Kominsky-Crumb and Doucet, these stories are not shy about addressing sex and, in particular, with Fleener, drugs and rock and roll, and they do so with a rollicking sense of humor.

Phoebe Gloeckner (b. 1960) shares an unvarnished approach to girlhood in her work, as well as inspiration from Kominsky-Crumb and R. Crumb, both of whom were family friends. According to an interview with the Comics Journal’s Gary Groth, as a teenager Gloeckner spent time with the Crumbs and Terry Zwigoff and approached Ron Turner at Last Gasp to publish her comics. Gloeckner later trained as a medical illustrator and created comics somewhat sporadically through the 1980s and 1990s, but she gained acclaim for her anthology A Child’s Life and Other Stories (1998) and The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2002). A Child’s Life features seven comic art stories about a young girl, while The Diary of a Teenage Girl utilizes a combination of prose, illustration, and comics to tell the coming-of-age narrative of Minnie. Both works depict the harsh, usually brutal sexuality of young girls. The precise details of Gloeckner’s black-and-white ink drawings demonstrate her training as a medical illustrator and emphasize the physicality of the characters as well as the rawness of the sexual situations. Gloeckner’s work, like Barry’s, focuses primarily on young girls, and The Diary bears closer consideration in relation to Barry’s illustrated novel Cruddy, for they both employ a diary format to tell the stories of two adolescent girls on the cusp of adulthood thrust into the adult world. Yet Gloeckner’s work, while sharing an approach that does not gloss over the ugliness of girlhood, does not share Barry’s moments of fun and whimsy.

Debbie Drechsler (b. 1953) also dwells on the dark side of girlhood in her semiautobiographical comics, particularly Daddy’s Girl (1996) and Summer of Love (2002), which address rape and incest with blunt pictures and prose. Although Drechsler trained as an illustrator, she was inspired by Michael Dougan and Richard Scala to pursue cartooning after moving to San Francisco in the late 1980s. However, in an interview with Gary Groth of the Comics Journal, Drechsler cites Barry as her “primary role model for comics,” and Barry’s influence can be seen in both style and substance. In Daddy’s Girl, Drechsler focuses on a father molesting his daughter and Summer of Love examines an abused teenager dealing with sex and growing up. Drechsler’s comic style has a similar feel to Barry’s, though Barry’s wor...