Now reading at the Green Hand, No.2

Picture This! READ IT!!!

There are some books that do something that no other books will do for you, personally.

Lynda Barry has rescued me in times of need more than once.  I puzzled over her Marlys/Ernie Pook comic strips in the Casco Bay Weekly over 2 decades ago.  I found the characters annoying, but couldn't stop reading them week after week.  I eventually grew to love them.

Several years ago a certain someone bought me a copy of Lynda Barry's What It Is, and I loved it.  Then a couple of years ago I bought myself her next book, Picture This.  "Learn how to ART with the Near-Sighted Monkey!"  Who could resist?  Not me. 

Time and time again, Lynda Barry saves my bacon and puts it back in the creative fire.  There is something about the way she thinks/writes/draws that my deep-down brain understands, even when it is at its most broken (hello, the last 12 months).

Lynda Barry on the wilfulness of monsters and our need for their unpredictability.

There is an air of the dream-logic to her pages.  It makes sense to the part of your brain that you can't talk to directly.

Besides all that, she is absolutely, heartbreakingly funny.

If you are a creative-minded person (I don't care how long it is since you've done "art" -- maybe even since you were a kid -- you know you have a creative brain regardless), do yourself a favor and pick up one of her books the next time you have a chance!

 💘  I promise, you won't regret it.