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What It Is

by Lynda Barry

What It Is Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

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 remember. Bursting with full-color drawings, comics, and collages, autobiographical sections and gentle creative guidance, each page is an invigorating example of exactly what it is: "The ordinary is extraordinary." Lynda Barry explores the depths of the inner and outer realms of creation and imagination, where play can be serious, monsters have purpose, and not knowing is an answer unto itself.

How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? These types of questions permeate the pages of What It Is, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps on moving. Her insight and sincerity will tackle the most persistent of inhibitions, calling back every kid who quit drawing to again feel alive at the experiential level. Comprised of completely new material, this is her first Drawn &  Quarterly book.

Review:

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

Review:

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, shes an evangelist who urges people to pick up a penor a brush . . . and look at their own lives with fresh, forgiving eyes.” San Francisco Chronicle

 “Americas leading cartoon artist of childhood angst . . . The precise rightness of Barrys smallest observation puts TVs The Wonder Years to shame.” Entertainment Weekly

Synopsis:

“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 Barrys 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 Barrys 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.”

About the Author

Cartoonist, novelist, and playwright Lynda Barry is the creator behind the syndicated strip Ernie Pook's Comeek, featuring the incomparable Marlys and Freddy. Her books include One Hundred Demons and The Good Times Are Killing Me.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Jessica Weissman, May 14, 2008 (view all comments by Jessica Weissman)
Lynda Barry shares her creative process with you in a book full of great drawings and insights. This is the same stuff she teaches at courses around the country, and it works. Memory and images make fiction, right? And you can start in ten minutes.

What It Is is great.
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(11 of 15 readers found this comment helpful)

Product Details

ISBN:
9781897299357
Author:
Barry, Lynda
Publisher:
Drawn & Quarterly
Subject:
CGN000000
Subject:
General
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Imagination
Subject:
Creation (literary, artistic, etc.)
Subject:
Comic books, strips, etc.
Subject:
Graphic Novels
Copyright:
Edition Description:
Trade Cloth
Publication Date:
May 2008
Binding:
Hardcover
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
209
Dimensions:
11.00 x 8.50 in

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