Lynda Barry “'The Two Questions' came from trying to write something good and not getting very far because I had forgotten that trying to write something good before I write anything at all is like refusing to give birth unless you know for sure it is going to be a very good baby." "What I don’t understand is why I keep forgetting this and then having to remember it again. It was all the trying for something good that got me into the very tangle this piece describes. There certainly wasn’t any fun in it until I remembered to quit trying to be good. I had the flu when I wrote it and couldn’t hold my brush steady enough to get a good line, so I used a gel pen, which added some extra frustration, which wasn’t all bad: It gave me a kind of traction on the paper that helped steady the line, and I did it on my lap while camping out on the couch with the TV on, which gave me a good junior-high-school-homework feeling.” Lynda Barry has been making comics in her wonderful naive style since 1977 when editor and fellow cartoonist, Matt Groening (Simpsons, Life Is Hell) published her work in the student paper of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, which he titled Ernie Pook's Comeek, without her knowledge. She has published many books including "The Good Times Are Killing me", "Fun House" and "One! Hundred! Demons!" She offers a workshop titled "Writing the Unthinkable", in which she teaches the process she uses to create all of her work and uses techniques that appeared in her book, "What It Is" like the technique this comic demonstrates.
