Mostly Marlys

I just read Lynda Barry's The Greatest Of Marlys, about 250 pages of Barry comic strips featuring Marlys, of course, but also with plenty of her friends and relatives, such as Maybonne, Freddie, Arna and Arnold.

I was introduced to Marlys and the whole unprepossessing gang when I started reading Barry's strip Ernie Pook's Comeek in the Chicago Reader in the 1980s.  Turns out Marlys actually came to her in 1986, several years after the strip began. (I don't actually recall seeing much of Ernie Pook).  Marlys soon took off, becoming the lead character.

Marlys changed a bit through the years, but not much.  She's a kid (like all the others in the strip) who tries to navigate the tricky world of growing up, where parents and teachers and other kids are always working against her, one way or another.  But there are the little things that make her happy, like popsicles, or dogs, or hair styles.  On top of that, there's the constant mystery of the teenage world, as exemplified by older sister Maybonne.

The characters in the strip tend to narrate their adventures--in fact, there are so many words they often threaten to wipe the crude drawings off the page.  Sometimes there's not even a story--Marlys loves to address the audience directly, whether she's giving us beauty tips, discussing insects, or explaining why queers are okay.

Most of the strips are presented in four panels, arranged 2x2 in a square.  Sometimes Barry breaks the format (apparently in later years, and I'm guessing in a different periodical), though I prefer the four-panel work, at which Barry's a master.

While the strip is generally humorous, it can get pretty serious, and the laughter sticks in the throat.  On the other hand, sometimes it's just about how beautiful the world can be, without any laughs necessary.  And occasionally it gets so dark you're not sure what to make of it, such as a series of strips where a kid burns down a house and kills a woman--almost more than the comic can handle.

When Barry's at her best, as she often is in this book, I don't know of anyone else in comics who so successfully conjures up childhood--these kids live in a lower middle class (if not lower than that) America during the years Barry grew up, but they're universal.