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A review by foggy_rosamund
Making Comics by Lynda Barry
3.0
Lynda Barry makes you feel as though you can draw anything. Her pages ideas are imaginative and freeing, and she makes me escape the mindset that I have to create a "good" drawing, and instead lets me work freely in the moment. Her ethos -- to encourage everyone to draw -- is so encouraging, and I really like her openness to all kinds of drawing: by kids, adults' doodles and scribbles, brief sketches and careful designs. However, I found I stalled when I got to the central section of the book, where the exercises veer more towards writing comics in the form of memoir. I found the exercises less inspiring and more relentless. Barry has a tendency to push you: to use bad tools such as cheap oil crayons so that you will have to labour for hours over a single drawing; to spend huge chunks of time using a cheap pen to create shadow when you could just use a thicker pen; to work every day no matter what. Her approach began to feel constraining and lacking in flexibility.
Another aspect of this book that frustrated me is that there are many exercises that require you to work with a class full of people, but obviously I'm not IN a class, and I don't understand why she didn't adapt them when she's not teaching a group.I was also a bit put-off by the absences policy she lists at the beginning of the book: that if you miss three of her classes, you're out. I would never have made it through her class if I was a student with her, and that makes me feel bad.
All that being said, this is a positive, imaginative book. It's fun to look at, very open, and full of great ideas. It made me excited about drawing, and was a good companion during lockdown. I may return to it.
Another aspect of this book that frustrated me is that there are many exercises that require you to work with a class full of people, but obviously I'm not IN a class, and I don't understand why she didn't adapt them when she's not teaching a group.I was also a bit put-off by the absences policy she lists at the beginning of the book: that if you miss three of her classes, you're out. I would never have made it through her class if I was a student with her, and that makes me feel bad.
All that being said, this is a positive, imaginative book. It's fun to look at, very open, and full of great ideas. It made me excited about drawing, and was a good companion during lockdown. I may return to it.