Being Undigital: An Interview with Lynda Barry
by Marcia Stepanek

I caught up with Barry at last week’s CUSP conference in Chicago; what follows is an edited transcript of that conversation:

...

You’re also working on a graphic novel, about the problems that people are having living on or near wind farms, right?

Yeah, it’s probably going to be in the form of a strip, a graphic novel, and non-fiction. I live in Wisconsin and one of our neighbors invited my husband, Kevin, and I to go with her to a public meeting at a school to hear about the wind farm coming into the area. So I went and somebody had a videotape of a set of interviews with people in Mars Hill, in Maine, (the site of another wind farm) talking about how horrible it was to live near one of these, and I got interested.

Read the full interview.

Lynda Barry: Writing the Unthinkable

Cartoonists Lynda Barry and Eric Drooker will be joining the artists, critics, scholars, and community members taking part in the symposium "Drawing the Line: Comics and the Art of Social Transformation" on Haverford College's campus from October 22-25, 2009.

Members of the public are invited to Lynda Barry's presentation "Writing the Unthinkable".

Sharpless Auditorium
Haverford College
370 Lancaster Ave.
Haverford, PA 19041
Friday, October 23, 7:30 PM

Details here.

Lynda Barry: Writing the Unthinkable

Lynda Barry’s quirky and wholly original creative voice has shone through in her syndicated strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek and in such books as One! Hundred! Demons! and the 2008 book What It Is. In this two-hour workshop designed to help participants tap their own creativity, Barry plumbs the depths of the imagination, where play can be serious, monsters can have purpose, and not knowing can be an answer in itself.

The Newberry Library
60 West Walton Street
Chicago, IL 60610
#304: Sat, Nov. 7 11:00 - 1:00 PM
Adults: $5.00
Educators & Students: FREE

Details here.

Matt Groening & Lynda Barry Cartoonists in Conversation

Matt Groening (creator of the The Simpsons, Futurama, and Life in Hell) and Lynda Barry (Ernie Pook’s Comeek and The Good Times are Killing Me) first met in the 1970s at Evergreen State College, the improbable seedbed of some of the greatest graphic comic work of the past several decades. They remain close friends and continue to influence each other’s work. Two of the country’s funniest people separately, Groening and Barry together breach the comic sublime.

UIC Forum
Chicago, IL 60608
Thu, Nov. 5 7:00 - 8:00 PM
Adults: $15.00
Educators & Students: FREE

Details here.

The Near Sighted Monkey Book was originally solicited as a petit livre but grew into a longer book. Drawn and Quarterly have some preview images on their blog.

The Grand Valley State University Department of Art and Design brings to campus writer and cartoonist Lynda Barry.

Loosemore Auditorium
Thursday, October 8, 2009
7:00 PM

Her lecture is open to the public with free admission.

Details here.

July 1 - October 31, 2009 | FedEx Global Education Center

kip fulbeck: part asian, 100% hapa is an exhibition of portraits by artist Kip Fulbeck, who traveled the country photographing Hapa of all ages and walks of life.

This exhibition is now on show at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and includes a portrait of Lynda Barry.

If you missed Women's Health magazine in June 2008 (and that's got to be half of you, right?) then you missed this two-page colour strip.

It was the strangest sensation Lynda Barry ever felt: a near-constant vibration within her body.

“You know how sometimes, around your eye, you’ll get this little tic that kind of wiggles?” says Barry, of Footville, Wis., south of Janesville. “It was like having that in your ear and your chest. A pulsing. It’s the weirdest feeling!”

Click through for the full story and comic strip here.

Drop Everything! Forget your pirate video copy, Grandma's Way-Out Party! is now online at the Minnesota Video Vault!

I found three interesting Lynda Barry videos on YouTube:

• An interview with Matt Groening from "My Wasted Life" that mentions his time at college with Lynda:
  



• An interview with Lynda from "Prisoners of Gravity," November 3, 1993:
  



• An interview with Lynda from "Prisoners of Gravity," December 8, 1993:
  

Tom Spurgeon repoted on August 4 that Drawn and Quarterly will extend its recent publishing relationship with cartoonist, author and lecturer Lynda Barry to include a pair of new works. They will publish two new Barry books: The Near-Sighted Monkey Book: Picture This, featuring her well-regarded portraits of monkeys, and a prose novel called Birdis. Birdis will be Barry's first novel since Cruddy.