From her first comics published in the Evergeen State College school paper to her influential weekly comic strip,
Ernie Pook's Comeek
; from her bestselling creative how-to memoir comic books,
What It Is
and
Picture This
, to her novels, graphic memoirs, plays, and awards in between, Lynda Barry has been part of the North American alternative comics scene for thirty years.
Fans around the world rejoiced at D+Q's announcement of
Blabber Blabber Blabber: Volume 1 of
Everything
, which collects all of the seminal
, some of which has been out of print for decades, and includes her earliest books, such as
Girls and Boys
Big Ideas
, and features an introduction penned by Barry, complete with photographs.
Reflective of the early 1980s before the appearance of Barry's well-known characters Marlys and Arna, the comics in
Blabber Blabber Blabber
cover the more adult subjects of bad love, bad perms, being single, Prince, and miserable break-ups—resulting in one of the most oft-quoted Barry sayings: "Love is an exploding cigar which we all willingly smoke."
Though Barry's early drawing style is most often described as "scratchy," her affinity for large swaths of text and narration; her fondness for exclamation marks, angular shapes, and cursive penmanship; and her uncanny ability to zero in on the very essence of life all within a few panels is as present as ever in this collection.