Page 45 Review by Stephen
Lynda Barry seems much invigorated following her renaissance in PICTURE THIS and Page 45's Comicbook Of The Month WHAT IT IS, and provides an introduction for her earliest comic strips in much the same style. What's fascinating is that as far back as 1981 in the GIRLS & BOYS collection reprinted here Lynda was already providing instruction for catalysing creativity in exactly the same fashion as her last two books.
Her own early inspirations included Dr. Seuss, and I don't think that ever left her because one of the most striking elements of her work here is she is at play - just like her TWO SISTERS, their imaginations running wild much to the irritation of a nagging, hypercritical, "Don't do this!" mother, constantly trying to stifle the stuffing out of them. The Dr. Seuss books play with words in a way that's liberating, letting them lead the story and one of the revelations Barry writes about when reading the likes of Ripley's BELIEVE IT OR NOT (about human and animal oddities) and Robert Crumb's ZAP! is that there are no constraints in what's fit for comics.
All of which goes a long way to explaining the totally unfettered nature of the early Ernie Pook strips complete with - yes, you guessed it - a nagging mother, off-stage as always. There also are quizzes ("Test Your IQ Now! Which one would you eat?? 1. The dice 2. Miss Tina's Dentures") and tests:
"Test Your Self-Respect - a scientific system of testing developed especially for Earthlings.
Check one:
A. I'm so awful
B. I'm so awful
C. I'm so awful
Why? (In your own words)……….."
Once more with the interactivity used throughout for satirical purposes, her dense, 8-panel checklist about Finding Your Perfect Love-Mate being a veritable essay in female subservience from which:
"Is It Love? How Can I Tell?
1. Which of these things can you no longer do? A. Anything B. Everything.
2. Do you think about "him" all of the time? Yes. No.
3. Do you think about "him" all of the time? Yes. No.
4. If he wrecks your car through inexcusable carelessness you say: A. That's okay. B. Gee. C. Oh just leave it there, would you like some dinner?
5. Do your find yourself agreeing with everything he says? A. Well, he and I do have a lot in common. B. If he says so. C. I don't know, ask him."
By the time we come to that final section, BOYS & GIRLS, Lynda Barry has really let rip with mean mouths full of tiny, sinister teeth, thick black lips and wild, ugly punkish hair as the battle of the sexes erupts into a full-scale war, while school and home life both get a great deal grimmer. By comparison the TWO SISTERS episodes - at first starring Evette and Rita aged 9, then Shirley and Judy aged 16 - seem positively dainty with prettily patterned wallpaper, sofas and dresses… although if you look closely Rita aged nine once wears a dress printed with scissors and in another strip I'm pretty sure those are either matches or cigarettes! During either period Barry's very well versed in the lies we pass off as truths to impress others, those we tell simply to get out of trouble or with the sole purpose of landing others right in it - like, err, babies don't feel pain! It's very, very violent, which makes the accompanying photo from 1981 of Lynda signing BOYS & GIRLS to a mother and daughter all the funnier. The book signing appears to have been held in a bar, just like Page 45's own first signing with Roberta Gregory a week before we opened. We should do that again sometime.
