examples. I'd love to eavesdrop. In fact I did one time. I was in a cafe once, and I heard these people sitting next to me talking about my comic strip and how I had gone downhill since “ Two Sisters. ’’ CSQ: Comic strips have a history of being very clearly accessible to everyone as a popular art form. Sometimes you'll hear people say, “ Well, I don’t get it." What do you think’s going on with those folks? Lynda: They don’t get it. I've thought a lot about what “getting something’’ is, and why it is that when you get something you laugh, like with a punch line, for instance. I’m really into schematics, or how something works—I figured out that you're introduced to a bunch of parts, and then all of a sudden at the end, one of the last parts gives you information about how they’re all connected. Some clue is given that makes you shoot back through all the stuff that you’ve just heard, sort of like a retrospective patterning, and understand how they connect. The sensation of getting it is delightful, and it makes you laugh. % M l : ! may vn t 'M* * war r//1W i/ 'W fa I IL WHAT7 IM NOT TR7IN6 TO 6ET TOO IN IM TIDING To TEAC-H A&OUT HERE'TR7 IT/ Lately I’ve been real interested in relationships, how people go about them, what they let happen, what they tolerate. Humor makes you laugh, too, but the sensation of getting something is fantastic. And sometimes that final clue, for some people, just doesn’t connect it, because of their experiences or whatever. If your chemistry isn’t such that that last one gives you the information, you’ll never get it, and you just don’t and that’s a fact. It's like another language. Get it? CSQ: Yeah. I get it. You said earlier that you thought that it was important to draw. Lynda: I was saying that I have a commitment to making art. Even though that sounds corny, that's true. Because...especially with my comic strips and also with my portraits...I try as much as possible to make it about people, real stories. Not necessarily real stories that have happened to people, but try to use the real language. The work starts to have a kind of a value or a good about it that good artwork does have, where it can relate to different people’s lives. It can be therapeutic. Did you ever, this is corny, but, did you ever read the book Seth Speaks? He thought that good paintings or good artworks contained information, instructions for healing. I believe that you can get fixed from good art if you’re depressed or if there’s something wrong—that there’s information in it to help you. EIMLH TINA.1 A TEACHER TOLD ME THAT IF you POKE A BAE^ WITH A SAFETY BEFORE TH^AGE OF 5 THE LINN. y o w t miN6T0 6EV fAE IN TROUBLE SCIENCE ! OHHVH D O ------— you HAVE THE PIN 7) ] STOP'* , .i in ■■ —ii w-------rr-ra?—n 0? li — 1*» T T O A ’ POKE WITH ® SAFETWW LYNDA BARRY I Clinton St. Quarterly 7
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