Review by New York Times Review
WHEN a book insists, "Take art lessons from a monkey!" the only appropriate response, if you ask me, is "O.K.!" Two years ago, in her Eisner Award-winning coming-of-art memoir, "What It Is," Lynda Barry prodded would-be writers to pick up a pen (or a brush) and put it to paper. Her latest book, PICTURE THIS (Drawn & Quarterly, $29.95), taps into something more elemental - the fuzzy-wuzzy part of the brain that sees elephants in clouds (or in this case, rabbits in water stains) - and asks, "Do you wish you could draw?" In more than 200 pages of riotously distinct collages made with brush and paint, notebook paper, cutouts, tape and glue (with support from the colorist Kevin Kawula and, it seems, a "golden egg"), Barry sets out to show you - no, to remind you of - the pleasures of inking, smudging and, most important, fumbling your way to inspiration. "What makes kids draw?" she writes in bold block letters. "What makes adults scared to draw? . . . Why aren't kids scared of it? And what is it that one day comes to make them afraid?" Assisting in Barry's march against artistic agita is the Near-Sighted Monkey, who from the moment she arrives (complete with imaginary friend, as if the monkey weren't enough) promises to escort us through four seasons and many moods. The monkey's main task is to play the non sequitur: Here she is in fall and spring. Here she is ordering a hot dog. And here, we learn, "the Near-Sighted Monkey is not careful with the toothpaste." Barry wants you disoriented, wants to turn your timorous brain into luscious mind-mush. Intention, she asserts, is the killer of creativity, for it introduces self-consciousness where before, there was none. Close at hand lurk the demons of doubt: the ones who say don't draw an octopus enjoying a smoke break, don't draw a monkey pouring banana-pancake mix into the washing machine. Barry, in composing these very images, rebuffs the naysayers and demands, Why not? Make a swirl, color it in and lo: you're Kandinsky. A monkey's head appears stroke by stroke - slash, circle, dashes for eyes, dots for nose, curved ears. In case you resisted drawing it the first time (and I'll bet you 10 bucks you did), the head winks into sight again toward the end, defying you not to doodle. Bit characters from "What It Is" have leading roles in "Picture This." The Staring Cephalopod, an inky, googly-eyed shadow, "invites you to attend . . . to the back of your mind." A Meditating Monkey, floating in the margins of the previous book, becomes for Barry a mantra-in-pictures, an agent of serenity in the face of grievous events: Iraq, Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina and the sudden deaths of friends. "In terrible times," she writes, "people sing. . . . Where can a brush take you? It can take you to the singing place." Do not be deluded: despite the feel-good message, this is a book for people who like their whimsy black. Barry rejects milk-and-sugar sweetness for something stronger, richer, more complex. She sees darkness even in summertime - memories of green Kool-Aid and the cute boy next door are offset by yellow-jacket attacks and holes in the inflatable swimming pool. In the Near-Sighted Monkey's "favorite show," "Twirlita" the ballerina goes from lighthearted prancer to barking-mad dancer. This is all as it should be, Barry makes plain. It is healthy, it is freeing to wail in both joy and sorrow. Whatever your mood, just be sure to have cotton balls and glue at hand, for "sometimes in life when we are very sad, it is good to make a chicken." More than once, to get you started, Barry offers templates of a bunny, a bat, a bird and a pair of I-don't-know-whats, urging the reader to cut, copy, trace, color and paste. "No!" you might say. "I wouldn't dare defile a book as bewitching as this." But then you realize: were Barry in the room, she'd probably hand you the scissors herself.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 5, 2010]
Review by Booklist Review
The creator of the weekly Ernie Pook's Comeek follows up What It Is (2008) with this equally inspiring and inspired guide to freeing the creative potential within even the most tightly buttoned reader. Barry introduces the Near-Sighted Monkey, who joins her beloved character Marlys in leading readers through imagination-loosening exercises in doodling and coloring as well as snippets of sly storytelling and fact revealing. At times the Near-Sighted Monkey channels Barry presenting information about how the cartoonist approaches her own work and also offers very monkey-centric tidbits, such as when to talk about banana peels. Marlys fans will find plenty of satisfaction here, but adults and older teens who crave the opportunity to regain the pleasures they found in childhood creativity will also be thrilled with this volume. Although this book makes a good companion for What It Is, there is no need to be familiar with that title before cracking this one.--Goldsmith, Francisca Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Barry's follow-up to her critically and popularly acclaimed What It Is focuses on the practice and purpose of drawing. As before, this oversized, full-color book collages comics, drawings, and found images to blend memoir, fiction, and philosophy with workbook-style instruction. Picture This proceeds from the same ideas in Barry's earlier work-which regard creative activity as a necessary extension of childhood play-but may be neater in its marriage of theory and practice. By focusing on drawing as directly as the first book did on writing, this ornately visual book shows the fruits of Barry's practice on every page even as it makes her methods overtly accessible. The book is interspersed with comics narratives including moving autobiographical shorts and sequences featuring her beloved characters Marlys, Maybonne, and Arna, as well as full-page images of her new character: a self-satisfied avatar called "The Nearsighted Monkey," who represents, perhaps, a well-fed creative impulse. A pedagogical sketchbook by a wise and eccentric kindergarten teacher for adults-who is also a fully mature artist-Picture This teaches, nurtures, and encourages without sacrificing the edge that makes art a thrilling journey into the unknown. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Barry's award-winning What It Is asked, "Do you wish you could write?" In this engaging follow-up, Marlys returns and-with help from the Near-Sighted Monkey-explores a new question: "Why do we stop drawing?" In the style of an artist's scrapbook, friendly watercolor and ink images wander across pages made of lined paper, graph paper, and pages of text from Treasure Island. Barry offers scraps of poetry and snapshots of her adult and childhood experiences with art while exploring line, texture, color, and more; the result is part memoir and part practical advice manual for releasing creativity. Barry gives permission to trace, color, and doodle, not just because the results may actually be good but because the actions themselves can be a means of meditation and change for anyone, artist or not. Verdict This whimsical but contemplative journal-cum-primer asks us to remember the importance of play and return to our childhood approach to art. For teens and up, it's a pleasure for the artistically inclined-and the rest of us. Highly recommended.-Julia Cox, Penticton P.L., BC (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Teens who enjoyed Barry's What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly, 2008) will find more to love in this follow-up. While more reflective than its predecessor, it maintains the earlier work's hybrid formula; it is both a work of art and a work about art, being part picture book, part creative therapy, part step-by-step instruction, and part comic memoir. In one memorable panel, Barry compares an image of a happily scribbling three-year-old to that of a teen who stares sullenly at a blank page. The author asks, "What makes us start drawing? What makes us stop?" To work toward the answers to these questions, she demonstrates how anyone can express who they are through the creation of images, even if those images are nothing more than chickens made of cotton balls. She also elaborates on the power of image-making and how it has supported her throughout her life. Longtime Barry fans will be happy to see the return of Marlys, the outspoken, guileless tween who is arguably her best-known character. Barry herself also appears in the guise of a new doppelganger, The Near-Sighted Monkey. While the book's unusual nature and indirect messaging will no doubt confuse many, for the right person, Picture This could be a launching pad to a new level of creativity and self-exploration.-Douglas P. Davey, Halton Hills Public Library, Ontario, Canada (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
