Awarded a 2019 MacArthur Genius Grant
“Eternally wise and strange.”—NPR
“Barry is pushing the envelope on understanding how the brain creates and responds to words and pictures — a scholarly envelope that, in her mind, should be positively covered with illuminating doodles.”—The Washington Post
“Making Comics is stuffed to the gills with Barry’s friendly wisdom, characteristic doodles, and mind-expanding exercises.”—Paris Review
“Barry pairs a spirit of wise and open encouragement with a demand for rigor... The underlying thesis of Making Comics is that anyone can discover their own cartooning genius, if they are willing to put in the work.”—Salon
“What’s most delightful about Making Comics is its emphasis on action, on exercise, on practice—on actual making.”—New Republic
“Part motivational lecture, part creative writing exercise, part group therapy session, and part trippy meditation on memory and play… Barry is not only a genius herself but an encourager of genius in others.”—The Nation
“[Making Comics] will help anyone, adult or child, to regain the spirit of freedom, improvisation and joy."—KCRW Bookworm’s Best Books of 2019
“One of the best books on unlocking creativity I've ever read: humane, interdisciplinary, fun, and in touch with something deep and mysterious.”—Boing Boing Best Books of 2019
“An instructional book that doubles as a work of art... 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."—Publishers Weekly starred review
“The activities, drawn from Barry’s own magical classroom, are fun, flexible, and easy to follow [while] the reality that art drives and sustains us, if we let it, is present on every page… An engaging combination of how-to and why-you-must, perfect for anyone with a story itching to be told.”—Library Journal, Starred Review
“[Making Comics] feels like taking a class from Marlys while stuck in the living room at your cousin's house, and it's a delightful, shed-your-inhibitions-about-your-talent kind of instruction.”—Chicago Reader
“[Making Comics is] full of drawing exercises that help you access your creativity and silence your inner critic.”—CBC Q
“Making Comics is both a tool kit of her comics-making exercises and a tender manifesto about how anyone can create.”—Lit Hub
“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.”—Booklist, starred review
“A sequential art legend known for her imaginative and deeply personal work... shares her comics-making exercises that detail her creative curriculum.”—My Modern Met
“A lesson in rekindling our inner spark...part philosophical discussion, part memoir, and part straight-into-the-vein fun.”—Black Girl Nerds
“I've read a lot of writing and drawing textbooks, and Barry's is the only one that has made me choke up with emotion.”—Pop Matters
“Delightful… [Making Comics] offers a thoughtful, clear, step-by-step approach to generating creative work in words and pictures, which is daunting when a person is staring at a blank page and wondering how they could possibly begin.”—New City Lit
★ 12/01/2019
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
