What It Is

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What It Is

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Overview

"Deliciously drawn (with fragments of collage worked into each page), insightful and bubbling with delight in the process of artistic creation. A+" -Salon

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."

Product Details
About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781897299357
Publisher:	Drawn & Quarterly
Publication date:	05/13/2008
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	987,848
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Lynda Barry has worked as a painter, cartoonist, writer, illustrator, playwright, editor, commentator, and teacher and found that they are very much alike. She lives in Wisconsin, where she is an Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Creativity at the University of Wisconsin Madison. In 2019, she received the “Genius grant” from the MacArthurs Fellows program.

In addition to What It Is, Barry has written four bestselling and acclaimed creative how-to graphic novels, What It Is; Picture This; Syllabus: Notes From an Accidental Professor; and Making Comics. Her seminal comic strip, Ernie Pook's Comeek, features Marlys, Maybonne, and Freddie and was collected into The! Greatest! of! Marlys!, The Freddie Stories, Come Over Come Over, My Perfect Life, and It’s So Magic. Her other books include One! Hundred! Demons!, Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel, and The Good Times are Killing Me.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Some Comix I Love: Subverting the Graphic Novel Norm, A Guest Post from Art Spiegelman, Author of <I>Maus</I>

Some Comix I Love: Subverting the Graphic Novel Norm, A Guest Post from Art Spiegelman, Author of Maus

Maus is the highly acclaimed graphic novel that changed the way graphic novels were considered and viewed. Both brutal and moving, Maus recounts the experiences of Art Spiegelman’s father during the Holocaust, and it is a must-read that will linger in the minds of readers long after they’ve finished. Art Spiegelman will also be honored by the National Book Foundation with the 2022 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first comic artist to receive the DCAL medal. Keep reading to hear from Art Spiegelman himself about Comix that he loves and subvert the graphic novel norms like Maus did in its time!

Praise for Lynda Barry:
“Barry is, underneath the wonky handwriting and the quirky, naïve drawings, a great memoirist . . . Like [Tobias] Wolff and [Dave] Eggers, she finds a tone that accommodates self-criticism and self-irony without tipping over into self-loathing . . . but what she is particularly good at is resonance.” —The New York Times
“Barry is not just a storyteller, she’s an evangelist who urges people to pick up a pen—or a brush . . . and look at their own lives with fresh, forgiving eyes.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“America’s leading cartoon artist of childhood angst . . . The precise rightness of Barry’s smallest observation puts TV’s The Wonder Years to shame.” —Entertainment Weekly

From the Publisher

This brilliant, beautiful, nearly uncategorizable book is a print version of Barry's famous seminar "Writing the Unthinkable" a class about writing from "images," recollected or imagined moments. It's part cartooning, part handwritten text, part ornate multimedia collage (with heartbreaking pieces of decades-old school papers and words snipped out of old textbooks)-all three appear on almost every page, most of which Barry constructed by decorating every available space on ruled yellow notebook paper. The first and longest section is a bizarre and hilarious memoir of Barry's creative impulses: how they developed when she was a child, how they flickered and faded when she started asking herself "Is this good?" and "Does this suck?" and how they returned when she learned to escape that trap. The core of the book, though, explains the "writing the unthinkable" technique; it's narrated by a sea monster and stars a "magic cephalopod." Finally, Barry shows us a sheaf of her note pad, the pages she fills with doodles and spare phrases while she's working on a "real" project; they are, naturally, as vivid and radiantly eccentric as everything else here. The whole thing is overflowing with quirks, strangeness and charm, and makes palpable Barry's affection for her students and the act of art making itself. (May)
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Publishers Weekly

"It" is a highly imaginative, image-and-words collage, mashed-up with a how-to-write book and highlighted with autobiographical snippets. Barry's purpose is to urge readers to interact with their own imagery, ideas, and stories, then write and/or draw them. The text wanders through a colorful, free-form garden of birds, animals, flowers, and snippets of letters and quotations, almost demanding that readers break any habits of associating "creating" with fear-inducing concepts like "assignments" or "rules." As her own form of exercises, she invites readers to write what first comes to mind, using various prompts and tricks to disable inhibitions and the hypercritical overseer in the head. Doodles, hypothetical questions, ornate borders, and dialog all become grist. Create images, and words will come; create words, and images will come. What It Is will frustrate readers who want to follow a clear trail of ideas and pictures but delight those who take the time to let their minds taste all of Barry's visual and literate smorgasbord. For teen and adult collections.
—Martha Cornog

Library Journal

Gr 9 Up
Every so often a book comes along that surpasses expectations, taking readers on an inspirational voyage that they don't want to leave. This is one such book. Each page is a feast for the eyes with beautiful full-page collages of photographs, watercolors, ink drawings, and text, resulting in a gorgeous volume that explores and encourages writing in a combination of ways. The author challenges readers with philosophical questions to ponder, such as "What is an image? Where are they found? Can we remember something we can't imagine?" The volume also acts as a workbook that successfully encourages teens to explore their own creativity through writing. In addition, autobiographical glimpses of Barry's journey from childhood to adulthood appear throughout the book. The struggles and obstacles she faces while following her path of becoming an artist and writer allow readers to believe in the possibility of writing themselves. This stunning book will appeal to those teens who are interested in delving into their creativity through words and art. The questions posed and valuable exercises that exist within its pages, along with the illustrations, could also make this book a valuable tool for English and art teachers in the classroom.-Lara McAllister, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia

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