Lynda Barry Books

"Barry deftly portrays the capricious nature of teen friendships, adolescent peer-pressure, and the kill or be killed nature of a middle school's social scene in her signature style. In an authentic teen voice full of diffidence and melodrama, the bespectacled and freckled Maybonne relates all of life's indignities on equal measure. Heartbreaking stories of a broken home, child molestation, an alcoholic absentee father and a bitter mom emerge between strips about home ec class, summer vacation, and babysitting, illustrating Barry's peerless ability to make the reader both cry and laugh."--

Maybonne Mullen is "riding on a bummer" according to her little sister Marlys. As much as teenage Maybonne prays and tries she just can't connect to the magic of living. How can she when there's so much upheaval at home and school, not to mention the world at large? And yet Marlys always seems able to tap into it. In It's So Magic, the Mullen family dynamics are in flux. Uncle John makes a brief return to town to the delight of the girls. Freddy is finally reunited with his sisters. Marlys falls in love for the first time. And after they finally settle into a routine at their grandmother's the Mullen siblings' mother might be ready to take them back in. With war in the background and precarious parental support, the siblings long for peace, finding it in the small things like grocery store turkey drawing contests and fishing trips. Narrated by Maybonne, Marlys, and Freddy, It's So Magic captures Lynda Barry's unparalleled ability to depict the magic of youth experiencing firsts in a world that contains as much humour as it does hardship

Maybonne and Marlys Mullen endure the mortifying highs and lows of middle school in this Lynda Barry classic.

How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? For decades, these types of questions have permeated the pages of Lynda Barry’s compositions, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps on moving. What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. Composed of completely new material, each page of Barry’s first Drawn & Quarterly book is a full-color collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: “The ordinary is extraordinary.”

Es war einmal, zu einer dreckigen Zeit, an einer Dreckigen Straße, am Fuß eines dreckigen Hügels, im dreckigsten Teil einer verdreckten Stadt, in einem dreckigen Staat, Land, Erdkreis, Sonnensystem, Universum. So beginnt die 16-jährige Roberta Rohbeson in einer Septembernacht 1971 mit der Erzählung ihres Lebens. Jetzt wird endlich die Wahrheit über den mysteriösen Tag vor langer Zeit ans Licht gebracht, als die Behörden ein Kind fanden, das über und über mit Blut bedeckt durch die kochendheiße Wüste irrte. Der vielleicht dunkelste Coming-of-Age-Roman, der bisher geschrieben wurde. Mit der Fähigkeit, die schrecklichsten Szenen urkomisch erscheinen zu lassen, ist Cruddy eine atemberaubende Leistung der Autorin. Eine Reise quer durch Amerika mit Robertas gefährlichem Vater, angetrieben von Rache und Gier.