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Outcasts and Odd Ducks
I donât know. Iâve always been an odd duck. No matter what situation Iâm in, Iâve always been kind of an odd duck. A really friendly odd duck who triesâif Iâm just nice enough to people, theyâll leave me alone.
âLYNDA BARRY, personal interview
Lynda Barry defines herself as an âodd duckâ in an already outcast fieldâa 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 âhang around oddballs and losers because theyâre more interesting and theyâre always better in bed.â2 How does Barryâs 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 worldâas 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 artistsâa time of great change and growthâand 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 Hatfieldâs Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, offers a portrait of the Underground comix movement of the 1960s and â70s, which arose in defiance of the Comics Code Authority and which prefaced Barryâs entry onto the comics scene. Hatfield maintains that the âcountercultural comix movementâscurrilous, wild and liberating, innovative, radical, and yet in some ways narrowly circumscribedâgave rise to the idea of comics as an acutely personal means of artistic exploration and self-expressionâ (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 âthe Codeâ through macho flights of fancy. Witek argues that while these Underground comic artists âcreated works in the sequential art medium of unparalleled vigor, virtuosity, and spontaneityâ (51), âthe unrestrained satire of the undergrounds did at times descend to sophomoric in group smugnessâ (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 âbeautiful,â she said, âThe sex stuff was scary to meâ (qtd. in Schappell 52). Barry remembered, in an interview with Hillary Chute, âWhat R. Crumb gave me was this feeling that you could draw anythingâ (50). Barry further acknowledges happily imitating cult artist and hot-rod aficionado Big Daddy Rothâs rodent caricature âRat Finkâ and remembers of Roth, âSomething about his embrace of ugliness ⌠made me feel freedomâ (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, âDr. Seuss, Don Martin, Dave Berg, R. Crumb, Tom Robbins, Grimmâs fairy tales, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Andersonâs fairy tales, hippie music, Peter Maxx, the Broadway musical Hair, Ripleyâs Believe It Or Not!, The Family Circus, Archie, Nancy.â Out of this eclectic group, Barry particularly appreciated Bill Keaneâs 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, âI didnât love The Family Circus because it was funny. I donât 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 throughâ (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 wasnât 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 âthe generation right after R. Crumb. Not generation maybe age-wise, but of comics.â4 Roger Sabin notes, âThe 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 expectationsâ (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: âI donât feel like I am in any group with comics, certainly in the mainstream.â5 How does one characterize her work? Barry argues that âbeing called anything (except âPrincess Kittyâ) bugs me,â6 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 Barryâs 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 doesnât particularly fit neatly with her contemporary comic artists. Barry doesnât create âgraphic novelsâ 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 Wimmenâs 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 2005â2006 art show âMasters of American Comicsâ didnât 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 arenât âkeeping girls out. I can tell you for a fact no oneâs ever kept me out, and I can tell you that most of my friends in art and drawing have been guys.â7 Barry does not recognize a sexist boysâ 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, âSo I feel like boys, just biologically, have a longer period of time, and that, if you notice, itâs not just a boyâs club, but itâs a boyâs club of socially not-forward peopleâŚ. Itâs nerds.â8 How did Barry end up amongst these nerds? She speculates it might have been the result of transgressing gender roles as a girl. Barry didnât get caught in the societal trap of abandoning her art for the adult world because, she says, âI was always a tomboy and I was never successful at the girlâs stuff, the girly-girl stuff.â9 It is an interesting fact that Barry, a woman who failed at âgirlâs stuff,â would later focus so intently on the lives and experiences of girls. Barryâs representations of self clearly struggle with what she calls âgirlnessâ 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 âtomboyâ female creating comic art, and although it might not be apparent from the âMasters of American Comicsâ exhibit, female cartoonists have demonstrated their own take on the world throughout the history of comics. Scholar and comic artist Trina Robbinsâs 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 Womenâs 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 âwomynâs comicsâ recalled:
Sadly, most of the male underground cartoonists understood as little about the new womenâs 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. Peopleâespecially women peopleâwho criticized this misogyny were not especially welcome in this alternative version of the old boysâ 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. Crumbâs beautiful aesthetic, she most likely did not condemn outright the Alternative comix pioneerâs depictions of women. Yet Barry obviously responded to and was frightened by his graphic and often brutal subject matter; as she recalls, âIt was really hard-core because the sex stuff was very frighteningâ (qtd. in Chute, âInterviewâ 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 wasnât hindered by a âno girls allowedâ 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 Robbinsâs 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 âBoys Onlyâ atmosphere) and about the sexism that was rife in the movement (particularly comix by Wilson, Crumb and Spain); and more directly about womenâs politics generallyâsubject 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 ânâ Clits and Wimmenâs Comics. Scott McCloud suggests that these all-female anthologies âwere raw, emotionally honest, politically charged and sexually frankâ (Reinventing 102). Furthermore, âThese same qualities, nearly 30 years later, are still present in the works of many leading female cartoonistsâ (Reinventing 102). However, McCloud notes that contemporary female cartoonists
though a minority stillâare far too numerous and their work far to varied, to classify as any one kind of âmovement.â 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 âexemplifies how graphic narratives can envision an everyday reality of womenâs lives, which, while rooted in the personal, is invested and threaded with collectivity, beyond prescriptive models of alterity or sexual differenceâ (âComics as Literatureâ 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 Wimmenâs 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 Crumbâs wife, she was creating her own autobiographical comics well before they met and stated in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that she âhad a big influence on his style of recording his life.â Her 2009 graphic memoir Need More Love tells Kominsky-Crumbâs 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, âcubismo,â in many comics, including the collection Life of the Party (1996) and the Slutburger series. Fleenerâs 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 Journalâs 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 Childâs Life and Other Stories (1998) and The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2002). A Childâs 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 Gloecknerâs 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. Gloecknerâs work, like Barryâs, focuses primarily on young girls, and The Diary bears closer consideration in relation to Barryâs 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 Gloecknerâs work, while sharing an approach that does not gloss over the ugliness of girlhood, does not share Barryâs moments of fun and whimsy.
Debbie Drechsler (b. 1953) also dwells on the dark side of girlhood in her semiautobiographical comics, particularly Daddyâs 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 âprimary role model for comics,â and Barryâs influence can be seen in both style and substance. In Daddyâs Girl, Drechsler focuses on a father molesting his daughter and Summer of Love examines an abused teenager dealing with sex and growing up. Drechslerâs comic style has a similar feel to Barryâs, though Barryâs wor...