Fifth Draft

This isn’t a book you read once and then be done with it.

No.

This is something you pick at, again and again, over multiple days, like a political article your friend sent you that you don’t read all in one go but promise yourself you will. Except this time, you’ll actually enjoy it. Seriously. Go out. Buy one of those vertical picture frame stands, and set this book on it, open to whatever page you want to, and look at it every day.

Lynda Barry has done something remarkable with this book, explaining that ethereal feeling and power you get when you set out to make a comic. The fear, the excitement, the magic, all of it. She breaks it down and not a single word is wasted. Every page you could spend an hour or more on, absorbing and processing, figuring out how to make it your own. There are a slew of helpful exercises to try out. Nothing should be off-limits. How does Barry make the insurmountable mountable?

If her four year old students can do it, then so can you. Everyone can make comics.

I might have finished reading, but it’s not something I think I’ll ever be finished with.

Making Comics by Lynda Barry (Barnes & Noble)

Thanks for reading,

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