Self-portrait
Lynda Barry is an American cartoonist of the Underground Comics and Alternative Comics movements. Active from the late 70's to The New '10s, Barry is one of the few notable women of Underground Comics. Most of her work was published as Ernie Pook’s Comeek (Pook rhyming with book), a serial in alternative weeklies, but have since been collected into books. Barry has essentially retired from cartooning and now works as a creative writing instructor; her most recent works are non-fiction about the creative process.
Barry's comics often draw from her life experiences growing up in a working-class, racially mixed neighborhood of Seattle. Barry's father was of Irish descent, her mother was of Filipino, and she had a difficult childhood raised primarily by her mother. Her comics contain themes on sex, relationships, childhood, loss of innocence, and fears, childhood or otherwise. Her earlier work was more episodic, focused on adult relationships. Over time her work became more serial, focusing on the semi-autobiographical adventures of a particular family: Maybonne, the rebellious teen sister, Marlys, the cheerful bookish younger sister, and Freddie, their emotionally disturbed cousin who visits from time to time, with cameos from other family members.
Barry is friends with Matt Groening, another underground cartoonist from the Pacific Northwest.
Tropes present in her comics
- Adults Are Useless: None of the children ever go to adults for help for their issues, and the adults around generally don't do anything other than punish the kids, even when the kids are facing serious issues such as sexual assault, drug abuse, and serious mental issues. Teachers are almost always Sadist Teachers who have it out to get the child characters.
- Alcoholic Parent: Maybonne and Marlys' father is an alcoholic, which implied to be a cause of much of the familial strife. One arc has him going into recovery and entering his children's life, then relapsing and leaving again.
- All Men Are Perverts: A theme in Barry's older comics is men who seem only interested in sex. One comic features two male friends having a conversation that consists only of grunts and Sexual Euphemisms. Many of the men in her later comics are somewhat predatory.
- Ambiguously Gay: Freddie. He is the target of homophobic bullying, and is implied to have been involved in a grey-consenting sexual act with another boy at school. But given his young age and generally confused mental state, it's hard to say for sure.
- Art Evolution: Barry's style started out as two-dimensional, exaggerated and almost cubist, but transitioned to a more realistic style as her subject matter transitioned to childhood.
- Art Shift: Her strips that deal with serious topics such as sexual assault are drawn in a more realistic style, compared to more lighthearted strips which are more cartoony.
- Bigger Is Better in Bed: One comic that parodies Cosmo-style "what do you want in your man" quizzes has "I want a man with a big one" as an option for every question, as apparently this is an important priority for some women.
- Big Red Devil: Satan, the big goat-man with horns, red skin, and a pitchfork, makes an appearance in some of the strips in Bad Ideas.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Maybonne. In some issues she's given more POV, while in others she fits the standard exterior view of the teenage daughter. Regardless, she's the oldest in the family and is a boy-crazy, mildly rebellious girl who frequently fights with her mother over phone usage and the ability to see her friends. This contrasts with the more bookish and quirky younger sister.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The comics are mainly set in the 1960s, and aren’t sugarcoated: the kids and teens are neglected and end up getting into trouble regularly, pretty much everyone over the age of 12 smokes, homophobia is common with Marlys and Maybonne’s gay uncle getting a rock thrown at his head and the police shrugging it off, and fathers are pretty nonexistent in their families lives.
- Dysfunction Junction: In some of the stories. Maybonne and Marlys's mother is borderline abusive, Maybonne (and many of her friends) do drugs, get sexually assaulted, and run away from home, and Freddie has trouble in school and hangs out with a bad crowd. Marlys is relatively well-adjusted, but with everything else going on her needs and wants are often ignored.
- Dysfunctional Family: Mom is generally too busy working/hanging out with her friends to pay too much attention to her kids, and Maybonne and Freddie get into all kinds of trouble in and out of school. The kids are frequently shuttled around between family members.
- Free-Range Children: All of the kids run around their unnamed city with no adult supervision. Unfortunately, this results in them getting into borderline criminal troubles.
- Enter Stage Window: In one of the Maybonne stories, her friend Brenda enters her window after running away from home.
- Growing Up Sucks: 13-year-old Maybonne has to deal with a lot of problems related to puberty, such as female infighting, angst about appearance, and sexually threatening men.
- Gonk: Many of Barry's older comics feature people with huge angry mouths, stylized hair, and generally distorted features.
- I Was Quite a Looker:
- Marlys and Maybonne’s mother frequently talks about how beautiful she once was and that she got many marriage proposals. An old family picture shows that she wasn’t exaggerating. Nowadays, she is a Gonk like most of the adults are drawn in the comic.
- An elderly couple who live by Arna and Arnold are shown to be very good looking when they were young.
- My Nayme Is: Barry changed her name from Linda to Lynda as a teenager.
- Parental Abandonment:
- The storyline “My Perfect Life” details Maybonne and Marly’s mother abandoning the girls with their grandmother for several months. Although she later returns, her abandonment leaves a mark on Maybonne.
- Arna’s mother dumps her on Mavis for about a month, packing her things and leaving her there on the doorstep with a note. It’s never explained why.
- Parental Incest: Maybonne's friend Brenda's father molests her, and does it front of Maybonne.
- Plucky Girl: Marlys. She does a lot of work to keep her family together, and despite a lot of family dysfunction is always cheerful and perky.
- Resentful Guardian: It’s heavily implied that Mavis regrets having kids and takes it out on Maybonne and Marlys.
- The '60s: Marlys’s stories take place in the mid to late 1960’s.
- Trashy Trailer Home: Mavis moves the girls into one of these after “finding God”. It’s not completely terrible, but the police are regularly there, it’s next to a graveyard and the last occupants of the family’s lot may or may not have killed their husband/father.
- Troubled Teen: Maybonne is a classic example. In various stories, she runs away from home, uses drugs and alcohol as a 14-year-old, and gets in a lot of bad relationships involving Questionable Consent. Her friends behave similarly. This is explained by her home life, as she has a Disappeared Dad and a mother who is cold, unloving, and often not around.
- Unusual Euphemism: In one strip, Brenda refers to an "F.U. and an Elvis", some sort of sexual act, being forced on her. The euphemism use serves as an in-universe Parental Bonus, as she's getting the message to Maybonne via her little sister Marlys, who doesn't know what those things are.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Maybonne used to be a lot like Marlys, plucky and creative. But after puberty and becoming more aware of her life, she became more cynical.
- Working-Class Hero: The entire cast, as well as Lynda’s autobiographical comics.
