My Lynda Barry Page

NOTE: This website is no longer being regularly updated. I (the website's author, not Lynda Barry) have become much more busy lately in my own life, and am unable to keep the page up to date. However, I'm leaving the old version up because it still contains information you may find valuable. Sorry about this.. --rachel

Welcome! This page is dedicated to Lynda Barry, genius of the comic world. She is the creator of Ernie Pook's Comeek, as well as the brilliant characters Marlys, Maybonne, and Freddie Mullen. Lynda's amazing insight into the reality of the lives of adolescent girls (enter Marlys and Maybonne) has made her a cult favorite in feminist and alternative newspapers, but she spreads her talents wide, also covering such diverse subjects as adult romance, war, peace, abortion, politics, and just about "Everything In The World."

Want to jump around a little? Fine, be that way...
biographical info
list of her books
Lynda's address
Lynda news
online gallery
links to other Lynda places on the web
merchandise and original artwork
other Lynda fans

And now, Lynda Barry!

Here's a little biographical info:
Lynda was born on January 2, 1956, and grew up in a working class Seattle neighborhood. She attended Evergreen State University (the first in her family to go to college), where she met best friend Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons and the Life in Hell strips. He was the first to publish her work, in the school newspaper, without her knowledge. And the rest is history...

Some of her great books (I've included in this list only collections of her work) include:

Please note that most of Lynda's books, being brilliant but not mainstreamly (is that a word?) successful, are out of print. Search in your local used bookstore -- there are meager supplies in the funkier areas of your major cities (e.g., Georgetown in Washington, D.C.; Newbury Street in Boston).

You used to be able to get collections put out by Lynda herself, which she'd even sign, number and personalize for you, but apparently that effort is on hold for now. However, if you want to write her anyway and tell her how cool you think she is, you can use this address:

Lynda Barry
P.O. Box 5286
Evanston, IL 60204

In addition to her cartoon work, Lynda has also created a coloring book, Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies!, and an audio tape/CD, The Lynda Barry Experience, which is hilarious and definitely worth getting. She is currently working on a new cartoon collection, The Greatest of Marlys, which will be coming out this Spring.

Lynda's novel (which also later became an acclaimed off-Broadway play), The Good Times Are Killing Me, is now out again on Sasquatch Press.

Sasquatch also published in 1999 a new collection of Lynda's cartoons, the first in five years, called the Freddie Stories. Both books are available online from Sasquatch or Amazon.

NEW!!

LYNDA NEWS

In 2000, Lynda put a new book out, an illustrated novel called Cruddy. The plot is a bit difficult to explain, but here's how the publisher, Simon & Schuster, describes it:

"Roberta Rohbeson, 1971. Her overblown, drug-induced teenage rant against a world bounded by "the cruddy top bedroom of a cruddy rental house on a very cruddy mud road behind cruddy Black Cat Lumber" soon becomes a detailed account of another story. The world of Roberta, then age eleven, is terrifyingly unbounded, a one-way cross-country road trip fueled by revenge and by greed, a violent, hallucinatory, sometimes funny, more often horrific year of killings, betrayals, arson, and a sinister set of butcher knives, each with its own name. It is a story about which Roberta has kept silent for five years, until, under the influence of a pale hippie called the Turtle and a drug called Creeper, her tale giddily unspools."

Cruddy has won excellent reviews from papers like the New York Times Book Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Wall Street Journal. There's plenty more information (including book excerpts, photos of Lynda and links to independent bookstores that carry Cruddy) on the Simon & Schuster Cruddy webring. An excellently done site, I highly recommend it.

NEWS FOR THE HOLIDAYS (1999) Lynda is selling personalized Marlys drawings for $25.00 for the holidays -- just write her at her Evanston address (here) with your name (and an address for her to send the completed work to).

Here's my small Online Gallery (but first, A Few Words About the Gallery):

Here's my short list of Lynda links: How about some Lynda merchandise? Or, here's a chance to buy some of Lynda's original artwork. A bit pricy, but surely worth it if you've got the money to spend. There are two sources for this that I know of: art dealer Linda Cannon and the Los Angeles bookstore/gallery Storyopolis.
Linda Cannon's collection includes: All of the above are originals, and all are signed. You can go visit Linda Cannon's gallery web page, featuring images of these pieces, or you can just email Linda Cannon personally for more information.
Note: I have recently been informed that Lynda Barry herself has no connection with the Linda Cannon gallery; apparently the works Cannon is selling were given by Lynda to people who later sold them to Cannon. Lynda does have a connection, however, with the Storyopolis bookstore/gallery, which you can contact at 1-800-95TALES or at www.storyopolis.com (or for a direct link to the page with Lynda's work, www.storyopolis.com/lyndaframes.html ).

And, finally, the last list:
Homepages of other Lynda fans
These are pages of people that emailed me loving Lynda. Not all of the sites have Lynda-related content, but they're all fantastic & interesting people, and I highly recommend checking them out.

Well, that's all, folks. Have any suggestions? Comments? Corrections? Links I'm missing? Pics to send me? Drop me an email, man. Important note: This email will go to ME, Rachel MacKnight, lowly Lynda fan and creator of this website. As far as I know, Lynda Barry herself does not have an email address, or even a modem. If you want to contact her, you must snail mail her at the Evanston address given above (here). Thank you...

Want to be really nice? Go fill out my survey.

Who wrote all this, anyway?

This WWWomen WebRing site is owned by Rachel MacKnight.
Click for the [ Next Page ] [ Random Site ]
Want to join the ring? Click here for information .

Go to the CapitolHill GeoCities