What It Is

by Lynda Barry

book data

475 ratings, 4.31 average rating, 172 reviews (more data...)

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5		53%
4		28%
3		14%
2		3%
1		0%

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published

May 13th 2008 by Drawn and Quarterly

binding

208 pages

isbn

1897299354 (isbn13: 9781897299357)

description

How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? For decades, these types of questions have permeated the pages of Lynda Barry’s compo...more

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06/11/08

jess rated it:

Read in June, 2008

recommended to jess by: lynda barry
recommends it for: everyone

THE ORDINARY IS EXTRAORDINARY. i love this book like i have never loved a book. i want to make out with it, caress it, sleep with it near my pillow and wake up clutching it after a bad dream.

this book is related to the Lynda Barry writing class WRITING THE UNTHINKABLE! which i took in april. this class and book are for people who think they want to write, but don't know where to start. it's also for people who never thought about writing, people who already write, and people w...more

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08/28/08

Kevin Fanning rated it:

bookshelves: totally-worth-owning

Read in November, 2008

I got this from the library but will be buying myself a copy post-haste.

This is what a book about writing should be. It was really interesting to read this so soon after Stephen King's "On Writing", because it really underlined how far short of the target his book fell.

A book about writing should do the following things:
* inspire you
* provide insight/discussion on the tools a writer needs
* offer framework for developing the skills of creativit...more I got this from the library but will be buying myself a copy post-haste.

This is what a book about writing should be. It was really interesting to read this so soon after Stephen King's "On Writing", because it really underlined how far short of the target his book fell.

A book about writing should do the following things:
* inspire you
* provide insight/discussion on the tools a writer needs
* offer framework for developing the skills of creativity.

This book does all of those things, but it's heaviest on the inspiration, which is where I think the focus should be. Look. The fact is anyone can write, but we get caught up in self-doubt. This book is about training your brain to work through that self-doubt, which is the most important thing for any person engaged in any type of creative endeavor.

This book is the tools, the inspiration, and the oblique strategies, all rolled up in one.

It's not perfect; the introduction is gorgeous and worth lingering over, but it goes on for a bit before you get to the actual heart of the issue. And I would have liked a little more wrap-up at the end; a bit more about the larger sense of why you should be interested in writing and developing the skills she espouses in this book (i.e. because it's good for you.) As it was it felt like she kicked me out of the end of the book a little abruptly.

And note that I haven't actually done any of the exercises she lists in the book, but I took away enough that I feel like I can apply them to the stuff I'm currently stuck on.

This is important work Lynda Barry is doing, and it was immensely helpful to me. She talks about how these are lessons that we can take to heart, but we will forget them, and we will need to continually relearn them. And I'm glad she put light on that and made it safe space; it was a huge relief to hear someone as amazing as her give voice to something that we all struggle with.

If you have this and a copy of Art & Fear on your shelf, I feel like you're going to be unstoppable.

Thumbs up, you guys. (less)

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3 comments

07/15/08

Jennifer rated it:

bookshelves: adult-books

Read in July, 2008

What It Is by Lynda Barry is a fascinating memoir/scrapbook/writing guide that almost defies definition. The first half of the book contains melancholic comic panels about Barry's alienated childhood and how drawing and writing saved her from loneliness interspersed with large one and two page spreads of collages that contain great writing prompts, like "Do thoughts move?" "What is a secret? What is it made of? Where is it kept?" "What is a monster? Do we need them?"...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

8 comments

10/23/07

Montambo rated it:

bookshelves: bio-memoir-diary, graphicnovel-comic

Read in May, 2008

recommended to Montambo by: Me, Myself & I
recommends it for: Artists and Writer, People who had crappy moms.

"You know when kids play act their terrible, horrible, no good anger or icky sexual frustration by knocking two dolls together?*"

Well, "One Hundred Demons," one of my top 5 ever, is like what would happen if you knocked "The Greatest of Marlys" together with "What It Is." They would procreate and produce one of my favorite books of all time. "Marlys" is super groovy, "What It Is" is super arty. I gotta say, though it kills m...more

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4 comments

12/16/08

edh rated it:

Read in December, 2008

Lynda Barry takes readers on a visual exploration of insecurities and uncertainties about the world in What It Is. Barry's obsession with storytelling and authenticity shines as she reflects on incidents in her life that led her to express herself through words and drawings. She reflects on whether childhood is a place or a time in one's life, and whether the past isn't an integral part of your present experience that you can draw on to help the creative process. The book contains many ideas,...more

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2 comments

07/29/08

Jessica rated it:

bookshelves: graphicnovel, humor, nonfiction, to-read

Read in July, 2008

We saw Lynda Barry speak about this book at ComicCon. She sang and danced and told jokes and reminded us all what it was like to play when we were really little. Then she signed the book for us and told Shawn and me that we "looked good!" She rocks.

Apart from that, this is a gorgeously illustrated book based on classes that she teaches. It explores the nature of art as play, how when we're kids we draw and write and sing and dance for the fun of it, and then suddenly in pu...more

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09/29/08

Meredith rated it:

bookshelves: gn, ya

Read in September, 2008

I would put this into the hands of anyone who wants to explore the creative process. This book is about memory and inspiration and drawing and writing and self-doubt and criticism (for good or bad), and it has questions that prompt a writer or an artist to think big thoughts and writing exercises to help focus things onto the page. She talks a lot about the relationship of objects to memory and to images...and a lot about her creative process and plus, the book just looks cool, period.
I ...more

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01/09/09

Alex rated it:

I get more and more out of this book the more I read it. It's a compendium of activities, musings, rabbit holes, and nothings. My ideal book for leafing through when I'm stuck in my work. Furthermore, she is completely hilarious.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

3 comments

01/17/09

Phoebe North rated it:

bookshelves: comics

Read in January, 2009

Lynda Barry's latest is more of an artist journal/workbook than a comic book. There are only about thirty pages, maybe, of comics, which are very close to the style and autobiographical content of One Hundred Demons. The loose story of the comics, the surrounding pages, and the instruction manual for journaling that takes up the book's final third, surrounds the maturation of both Barry's creative process and her burgeoning childhood self-consciousness. In the workbook "section", she t...more

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12/16/08

Sarah rated it:

bookshelves: on-writing

If you opened a can of beans and a genie came out and said, Wow, thanks for letting me out of that can! Now, let me release you from your can, in return! What would you say?

If the genie explained that he could free you from a dull, canned life, but that it wouldn’t make you rich or famous or even really cute – it would just provide you with a feeling of aliveness – would that be enough?

I think Lynda Barry is that genie. And this little scenario is how she begins t...more If you opened a can of beans and a genie came out and said, Wow, thanks for letting me out of that can! Now, let me release you from your can, in return! What would you say?

If the genie explained that he could free you from a dull, canned life, but that it wouldn’t make you rich or famous or even really cute – it would just provide you with a feeling of aliveness – would that be enough?

I think Lynda Barry is that genie. And this little scenario is how she begins the “Activity Book” section of her vibrant, emotionally-charged, beautiful, mysterious, inspiring, simple, mystical, funny instruction manual for the creative soul.

Barry is an artist, writer, graphic novelist and teacher. You might recognize her name from the “Life of Marlys” comics that used to run in the alternative weeklies. Yes – it’s that Lynda Barry. And this book sprouted from her “Writing the Unthinkable” class, a multi-day writing intensive* that is now available to people everywhere, because it is what What It Is is.

The workshop – and this book – teaches you how to locate what is alive in your mind, and helps you to sustain the state of mind that cultivates this awareness. In other words, Barry eases you out of your front-of-head thinking and asks you to practice being receptive to the images that are always already living and lurking in the back of your mind – your subconscious. Children, she reminds us, do this all the time. This is the place where art comes from. But this practice is also, quite simply, good for you. Even if you’re not a capital-A Artist (or a capital W Writer, or whatever).

The book is made from a complex and beautiful series of handmade collages and paintings. All the text is painted by hand with brush and ink. When you hold a book like this in your hands, it’s hard not to feel the tingle. I believe it’s your body and mind – and your spirit, if you will allow me that word – recognizing in these pages the aliveness of what it means to play. This, more than anything, is the book’s message: that to engage in the world of images is to be a healthy human being. Images, Barry writes, are the soul’s immune system.

What It Is is full of Barry’s personal stories (in the first part of the book), her intricate and loaded collage-messages, and her clear, deceptively simple writing instruction (in the second part of the book). At times the mix of text and image can be funny and sweet (I love her story about trying to think up big, compelling conceptual ideas for her art school projects) and at times they can be dark, frightening and sad. The journey into the wilderness of our creative life is like that – the unknowable is sometimes a lonely place, and sometimes it’s absurd. Barry is always brutally honest and authentic in way that makes your heart raw just to read it. The familiarity, the emotional truth of these stories – all of them handwritten, I remind you! – is a rare and tender aperture through which we can see our own creative heart beating.

The second part of the book provides some structure for our own exploration of this patient and vulnerable most-alive part of ourselves. It isn’t just a book for writers or artists (though writers and artists would do well to keep this book open in our studios as a reminder of what needs to happen in our work); it’s a manual for everyone who wants to remember what it is to live a fresh life, alive, out of the can. Because I think it’s enough – I really do – to do it simply for the feeling of aliveness. Isn’t it? What more is there, really?

* I was lucky enough to attend this workshop in Toronto this October. Barry is a gifted teacher, and rumour has it that she’ll be back in Toronto in May, 2009 to do it again!(less)

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12/18/08

Kate rated it:

bookshelves: adult, memoir, nonfiction, senior-high

Read in December, 2008

I can remember loving to draw and write and imagine as a child. I can also remember a later time when I stopped doing those things; when there were the good drawers and writers and the rest of us just stopped trying. I can't remember what changed in between those times. What was the event that made me stop drawing and writing and making stories? Lynda Barry examines that question in her own life in What It Is.

The first half of this beautiful graphic novel is a short autobiograp...more

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02/03/09

Jane rated it:

bookshelves: visual-narratives

Read in March, 2009

Barry does it again! I love the free way she uses collage along with her more customary brush and ink work. Meet the Magic Cephalopod who guides us to our imagery,Sea-Ma, the nonjudgmental writing instructor, and the Near-Sighted Monkey who likes to clip magazines while watching TV and drinking beer.

6/16/09 I now own a copy of this book with my very own personal inscription from the author! She even drew a near-sighted monkey for me!

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11/14/08

Maré Odomo rated it:

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in November, 2008

recommended to Maré by: Kevin Fanning
recommends it for: Me

The number of stars is subject to change, depending on whether or not this book's exercises release me from the whatever forces bind me from writing/comicking.

Actually, I don't know if that's fair. I am busy and these exercises are probably really helpful and a necessary part of the experience.

Lynda Barry seems like a pretty smart lady. I've never read any of her books before. I'm pretty unfamiliar with her work. I've picked up bits and pieces about her from my visits to ...more The number of stars is subject to change, depending on whether or not this book's exercises release me from the whatever forces bind me from writing/comicking.

Actually, I don't know if that's fair. I am busy and these exercises are probably really helpful and a necessary part of the experience.

Lynda Barry seems like a pretty smart lady. I've never read any of her books before. I'm pretty unfamiliar with her work. I've picked up bits and pieces about her from my visits to the comics section at Half Price Books and conversations about the college she attended. Things like that. I never really liked her style. It didn't seem... comicky enough...?

But I liked this book. The artwork really worked. I have a habit of being really critical about the art in comics but usually end up just reading all the text and turning the page. That's how our brains work, I guess. The repetition of certain characters (the cephalopod, the birds, that terrific owl-cat thing) made things easier. It kept things casual or something. I don't know where I'm going with this thought.

My favorite parts were when she would reveal something about her childhood. The chaos of the collage would clear away. I think that's the Lynda Barry I fell in love with. The grown woman still fretting about what she did when she was a little girl. And the little girl who was afraid to waste paper with her drawings, and who tore up her "wasted" paper and threw them away in separate trash cans to ensure that there would be no evidence left. I would not even consider completing the writing exercises if I didn't respect or relate to the person who wrote them.

It felt like the whole first half of the book (like 100 pages) was devoted to asking questions about what an image is or isn't, without any breaks. I still don't really know what this means. I feel like I understood everything except for this. Like there's this weird definition of image floating around somewhere that I haven't heard of. An image. It's, like, this thing... that you see, right?

Maybe it set the tone a little but it felt too long. And I was spending too much time trying to decipher all the hand-written notes and reading the recontextualized type.

Okay, it's like 3:30AM and this review is not as important as trying to sleep. Or facebook.(less)

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08/25/08

Jay rated it:

Read in August, 2008

What It Is began with a philosophical bang. Are dreams autobiography or fiction? Do imaginary enemies exist? And while I appreciate these existential debates for the duration of a conversation, my mind was not in it for the long haul. I can't fault the book for being ambitious. I'm just a simple guy.

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02/24/09

Terry rated it:

bookshelves: non-fiction

I love, love, love Lynda Barry with a kind of helpless, adoring love.

If I am remembering correctly, this book sort of picks up on writing/art/creativity "advice" (can't think of another word at the moment) she explores briefly in 'One! Hundred! Demons!' and expands it into a full-length book. This is sort of The Artist's Way, but for, you know, VISUAL people. It's a meditation on creativity and art and autobiography and imagination, along with some exercises. Honestly, if ...more

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06/07/09

Vicki rated it:

bookshelves: graphic-novels

Read in May, 2009

Neko Case described this book as generous, and as with so many things she says, writes and sings, I identify with that. I follow Barry's comics, and this book looks very much like those little funny, quirky strips. This book is about writing, but it's also about where inspiration starts, when you get down to it. Barry explains what she thinks an image or an idea is by just putting both of those things out there. She intersperses thoughts on creating art with the realities of her life, and, y...more

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11/12/08

Joe rated it:

Read in December, 2008

This is a big, beautiful book full of page after page of gorgeous collages Lynda Barry created, I'm supposing, while trying to actually write a autobiographical comic of her life. But that's all it is. If you're expecting the new adventures of Marlys and Maybonne, Freddy and friends you will be disappointed as I initially was.

Barry peppers her collages with brief comics chronicling her unhappy childhood and creative awakening, so my guess, after finishing the book, is her collages ...more

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06/14/09

Susan rated it:

bookshelves: adult--nonfiction, artsy, writing

Shelved as a YA Graphic Novel, this is a hard to catagorize book as it seemed more an adult memoir of how the author became an artist/writer than a YA, completely non-fiction (so Novel doesn't work even though it seems anything with a comic book feel illustration now is called Graphic Novel). So call it an Art Inspiration Memoir. While it has suggestions on following your art bliss (writing prompts of a sort, ditto art), it is primarily a heavily illustrated memoir, very sincere, and one that ...more

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12/28/08

Indra rated it:

Read in January, 2009

I wish I could afford to buy this for so many people I know...what a shot in the arm for anyone who wants to remember how creative they really are. There really is no other book like this one...I have a feeling I will wear my copy of "What It Is" out by going back to it often. The reader gets to see an amazing mind at work and learns to have more respect and hope for their own. For me, it definitely plucked some strings I'd forgotten I had, which Lynda Barry's work always does. "T...more

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01/29/09

Rae rated it:

Read in January, 2009

Lynda Barry is another genius of image. Reading this book is kind of like simultaneously undergoing art therapy and running a highly refined experiment about the meaning of image itself. She manages to illuminate a lot of key points, but I suspect that most people who find themselves drawn to this book will find that most of what gets illuminated in the reading is mostly personal stuff - the exercises and the personal narrative will get you going at some point, somewhere. I found it a very invol...more

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quotes from this book

"There are certain children who are told they are too sensitive, and there are certain adults who believe sensitivity is a problem that can be fixed in the way that crooked teeth can be fixed and made straight. And when these two come together you get a fairytale, a kind of story with hopelessness in it. I believe there is something in these old stories that does what singing does to words. They have transformational capabilities, in the way melody can transform mood. They can't transform your actual situation, but they can transform your experience of it. We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. I believe we have always done this, used images to stand and understand what otherwise would be intolerable." More quotes...