From her first comics published in the Evergeen State College school paper to her influential weekly comic strip, Ernie Pook's Comeek ; from her bestselling creative how-to memoir comic books, What It Is and Picture This , to her novels, graphic memoirs, plays, and awards in between, Lynda Barry has been part of the North American alternative comics scene for thirty years.
Fans around the world rejoiced at D+Q's announcement of Blabber Blabber Blabber: Volume 1 of Everything , which collects all of the seminal Ernie Pook's Comeek , some of which has been out of print for decades, and includes her earliest books, such as Girls and Boys and Big Ideas , and features an introduction penned by Barry, complete with photographs.
Reflective of the early 1980s before the appearance of Barry's well-known characters Marlys and Arna, the comics in Blabber Blabber Blabber cover the more adult subjects of bad love, bad perms, being single, Prince, and miserable break-ups--resulting in one of the most oft-quoted Barry sayings: "Love is an exploding cigar which we all willingly smoke."
Though Barry's early drawing style is most often described as "scratchy," her affinity for large swaths of text and narration; her fondness for exclamation marks, angular shapes, and cursive penmanship; and her uncanny ability to zero in on the very essence of life all within a few panels is as present as ever in this collection.
