Review by Booklist Review
If Barry's last instructional book, Syllabus (2015), helped encourage readers to get in the right mindframe to cultivate creativity, this latest, which follows a similar format, gives concrete tips for developing a comics-making practice. Barry opens with an introduction ruminating on her framework for teaching and general philosophy about drawing: I wondered if I could teach what I knew about the power of comics as a way of seeing and being in the world and transmitting our experience of it. From there, we're treated to page after hand-written page of exercises, lessons, and examples designed to help break ingrained habits and create without second-guessing. Beginning with game-like exercises (e.g., Scribble Monster Jam, which involves filling in a free-form doodle to create a monster character), each lesson adds a new level of technique, such as scene setting, character development, dialogue, point of view, and so on, ultimately ending with what amounts to a comics tool box, containing prompts to enliven the creative process. The hand-written pages, doodled margins, and off-the-wall characters (I'm looking at you, Professor Hot Dog) might make this seem silly, but there's a serious theoretical underpinning here, and Barry's lighthearted and genuinely fun approach is directly in service of it: banishing your inner critic, developing a disciplined (but playful) practice, and dismantling beliefs about what constitutes a good comic is key to finding something organic, original, and true.--Sarah Hunter Copyright 2019 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Barry follows up Syllabus by again condensing her celebrated visual storytelling courses into an instructional book that doubles as a work of art. Through her signature nimble comics and collage, Barry provides guidelines for teachers, students, and aspiring artists. These include pragmatic instructions on art supplies (Barry recommends keeping them cheap and simple, and the book itself is drawn on lined notebook paper), class rules and exercises, and theories about the nature and value of telling stories in pictures. "There was a time when drawing and writing were not separated for you," Barry writes, assuring newbies that "the most lively work comes from people who gave up on drawing a long time ago." Students are told to experiment with drawing with both hands, to "close your eyes and draw a bacon and egg breakfast," and to keep a daily illustrated diary. Gradually, the lessons expand into creating characters, drawing comic strips, and the mechanics of making minicomics. Barry's approach to art instruction is reminiscent of Betty Edwards's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and the classes taught by artist Marilyn Frasca, under whom Barry studied; she also builds from Ivan Brunetti's Cartooning: Practice and Philosophy. But these lessons from Barry, like her art, capture her own brand of magic: a synthesis of theory, practice, memory, imagination, and "a certain sort of unlearning." (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In her fourth collection on the creative process (after Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor), MacArthur Fellow Barry posits that when we're young and less self-conscious, words and images are inextricably linked. Through slightly madcap exercises, Barry asks us to find that mind-set, in which the pressure to do things perfectly can be lifted and one can speak one's mind through images. The activities, drawn from Barry's own magical classroom, are fun, flexible, and easy to follow, at once challenging and comfortingly familiar, often set to music, sometimes featuring self-styled superheroes. The guide has the textured collage aesthetic of the author's recent works, and in the margins of the exercises, her nearly mystical voice reminds that an act of creation is about something bigger than perfecting a cute comic in neat boxes--"Have mercy on the unspeakable monster who has no other way to tell you it's you." On its face, the style seems almost goofy, but the reality that art drives and sustains us, if we let it, is present on every page. VERDICT An engaging combination of how-to and why-you-must, perfect for Barry superfans, budding cartoonists, and anyone with a story itching to be told. [See the author interview, p. 77.]--Emilia Packard, Tokyo, Japan
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