Lynda Barry

Lynda Barry was a guest speaker at Tyler this past tuesday. She draws comics and writes, they were handing out copies of her book "What It Is"at the library the previous week. Along with the lecture by Superflex last semester it was my favorite lecture and I think everyone else would agree. She was comical and had a lot of great stories as well as interesting information or points of view on art that she shared with us. She talked a lot about children and the way they can come up with stories their mind set as they play. She mentions her own childhood experiences trying to figure out how to get an imaginary friend as well as her interaction with children. She talks about how she lures children over by starting to draw so that she can talk to them which is pretty creepy but when you hear her stories and the more you get to know her the less it weirds you out. One of my favorite stories was the one where she watches a kid at a restaurant as he begins to play with his bacon as his mom talks on her cell phone. The kid is doing that thing where he tells the bacon he's going to eat it and it pleas for him not to. When his mother interrupts and he doesn't know what he was doing she points out the fact that children don't know when play hits them all the time. That with play there is always an element of anxiety. She was constantly makes jokes and acting thing out she was so funny and she had great things to say. She also talked about images and how much they affect us. Jokes for example are a series of images. Lynda Barry believes that images are part of our biological function, and that art is as important as our immune system. One of her final comments is on using art to make a living. She compares it to having a baby your suppose to take care of it, it's not suppose to "buy you shit". As the final part of her speech she showed us images from her book "What It Is" and read it to us. It was a lot like an overview of what she had just talked to us about. It was especially neat to hear her read the book herself especially after hearing a little about her mother before hand and then seeing part of her life translated into a comic. All in all it was a great lecture and I really enjoyed what she had to say.