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The Greatest of Marlys
Lynda Barry had a bona fide hit with Cruddy, and her fans are now calling for her older comic strips, all out of print. This book answers the call as it delivers the life and times of Marlys Mullen, the most beloved character in Barry's nationally syndicated comic strip, "Ernie Pook's Comeek." This is a Lynda Barry double-tall: the long-awaited collection of the best strips from her syndicated comics. Way back in the mid-1980s, comic illustrator and writer Lynda Barry introduced the character of Marlys Mullen, her crazy groovy teenage sister Maybonne, her sensitive and strange little brother Freddie, a mother like no other, and an array of cousins and friends from the 'hood. This oversized book presents the long strange journey through puberty and life that Marlys and company have experienced. Marlys's universe and galaxy are funny, rude, disturbing, tearful . . . in short, very, very Lynda Barry.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 7, 2000
About the author
Lynda Barry
46 books1,094 followersLynda Barry is an American cartoonist and author, perhaps best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
October 10, 2008
Sure, Linda Barry draws cartoon characters, but these characters seem so real I'm often suspicious that Barry is stealing diaries and school essays from the 1970s and 80s. Reading their thoughts and adventures, I sometimes forget I'm reading fiction and feel like I'm spying on a motley group of kids who are fully wrapped up in the pain and joy of growing up.
It's rare that a serial comic strip can, in a few pages, so successfully move me from laughing out loud to scrunching up my face in an effort to keep my eyes from watering in sympathy.
Fantastic stuff. Highly recommended to everyone with a heart.
Note: I feel Barry's work loses its way a bit after 1996 or so, when her style becomes coarser and the characters' personal lives are largely ignored. The trailer-park sequences are excellent, and partially make up for it.
It's rare that a serial comic strip can, in a few pages, so successfully move me from laughing out loud to scrunching up my face in an effort to keep my eyes from watering in sympathy.
Fantastic stuff. Highly recommended to everyone with a heart.
Note: I feel Barry's work loses its way a bit after 1996 or so, when her style becomes coarser and the characters' personal lives are largely ignored. The trailer-park sequences are excellent, and partially make up for it.
Read
August 17, 2016A legendary comic figure, Marlys is Barry’s stand-out star, an eight-year-old freckled, bossy, bucktoothed young girl in glasses that Barry debuted to great acclaim in 1986. This is a brilliant retrospective on Marlys over the last thirty years, and a fantastic trip down memory lane. If you love Roz Chast, be sure to check it out.
Backlist bump: What It Is by Lynda Barry
Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/listen/shows/allt...
Backlist bump: What It Is by Lynda Barry
Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/listen/shows/allt...
November 30, 2008
Do not read this when you are tired. Most comics are easily read when in a stupor, but not this one. Probably because the drawings are very busy. Reading it at the laundromat is difficult too, especially if that laundromat has like 3 big screen televisions blaring Judge Judy.
My favorite strips were the ones about bugs.
My favorite strips were the ones about bugs.
November 25, 2017
AAAH LYNDA BARRY YOU POETIC ANGEL I LOVE YOU!!!!
The Greatest of Marlys is one of my favorite books EVER. I literally love the CRAP OUT OF THIS BOOK!! Thank you, Lynda Barry, for Marlys.
I wish to live on the Planet Marlys and sleep in Arna's Dream Bedroom. I could live off of Marlys' mom's reviews of the Sears Catalog.
But honestly, this book is amazing.
I love it
And I'm going to stop talking now!
The Greatest of Marlys is one of my favorite books EVER. I literally love the CRAP OUT OF THIS BOOK!! Thank you, Lynda Barry, for Marlys.
I wish to live on the Planet Marlys and sleep in Arna's Dream Bedroom. I could live off of Marlys' mom's reviews of the Sears Catalog.
But honestly, this book is amazing.
I love it
And I'm going to stop talking now!
July 10, 2017
I'm pretty sure Lynda Barry can do no wrong. This collection of comics from the late '80s-early '00s features the inimitable Marlys and assorted family members. Some of comics are outright hilarious. Others are less funny and more thoughtful, gently poking fun at both the mundane and the absurd in equal measure. Some are gut-wrenchingly sad. Such is the skill of this comics master.
This isn't the sort of book that one reads straight through; comics collections tend to get tedious when they're read like a graphic novel. Rather, it's ideal to read over time (much the way the original comics were published. Marlys may seem impatient, but she'll wait, I promise.
This isn't the sort of book that one reads straight through; comics collections tend to get tedious when they're read like a graphic novel. Rather, it's ideal to read over time (much the way the original comics were published. Marlys may seem impatient, but she'll wait, I promise.
July 9, 2008
i still snort chocolate milk through my nose when i read lynda barry, even though i haven't drank chocolate milk in years.
when i think of these strips i think of getting up at dawn in the summer and running barefoot over hot pavement. i love marlys's beach bingo & car trip bingo. i love her obsession with teenagers and being beautiful. i even love how crushed my heart feels when she goes to the birthday party of the stupid girl in her class that didn't invite her & wouldn't accept the present she brought. her stuff is totally major for me. plus she uses the word "dag."
when i think of these strips i think of getting up at dawn in the summer and running barefoot over hot pavement. i love marlys's beach bingo & car trip bingo. i love her obsession with teenagers and being beautiful. i even love how crushed my heart feels when she goes to the birthday party of the stupid girl in her class that didn't invite her & wouldn't accept the present she brought. her stuff is totally major for me. plus she uses the word "dag."
February 16, 2009
This book kind of makes me feel bad because it reminds me how incredibly inane my sense of humor can be at times i.e. this morning when I read the following dialog between Marlys and a boy, as she's trying to get him to follow her hand signals for a song:
Marlys: Ok now watch my magic hand while i sing so you can follow the notes.
Boy: No man, just tell me the part that goes after "cracked it open, it was rotten"
Marlys: First watch my magic hand.
Boy: Forget it, man. Watch my magic butt.
(this is where I started laughing so loud, I woke my son up).
Marlys: I'm tellin!
Marlys: Ok now watch my magic hand while i sing so you can follow the notes.
Boy: No man, just tell me the part that goes after "cracked it open, it was rotten"
Marlys: First watch my magic hand.
Boy: Forget it, man. Watch my magic butt.
(this is where I started laughing so loud, I woke my son up).
Marlys: I'm tellin!
Read
August 20, 2008It's actually "The! Greatest! Of! Marlys!" and don't you forget it! Lynda Barry is one of the best writers about childhood and of childhood, and her comics are at once hilarious and chilling. If you haven't read her books, this is a fine introduction, but a lot of it is a compilation of previous books, so I recommend just picking up any of her comics and reading a whole book through -- some are more graphic novels than collections of strips.
February 13, 2017
A wonderful collection of strips that captures childhood in a way that feels uncannily accurate - so much so that I found myself remembering things from my own childhood that I'd long forgotten.
July 30, 2024
shrimply the best
November 21, 2021
2.5 stars
This was actually a DNF, but don't tell that to my professor...
This was actually a DNF, but don't tell that to my professor...
December 8, 2010
It took me a while to get it, but I think I get it! Stories about family and friends and kids you don't want to be your friend until you do and being enthralled with the world and being lonely and and being disappointed and being weird and not wanting to admit you love people because sometimes they also annoy you. One of those writers who puts together such strong characters with such strong voices that you start talking like them a little bit. Lynda Barry has a beautiful heart. YES.
November 27, 2020
This book is perfect company, like a childhood best friend who invites you to a backyard slumber party and surprises you with your own can of pringles and a friendship bracelet they made themselves. Lynda Barry reminds us that, no matter how old or tired or bored we’ve become as adults, we all have a kid in us who is ready and waiting to play a kickball game under the neighborhood streetlights, willing to ignore the first calls to come home for dinner so we can fully finish this good day.
August 24, 2017
This is the first Lynda Barry I ever read and I love it, I don't want no kids but if I could be guaranteed a Marlys I would have one. Genius.
January 2, 2016
Reminded me of being young and how excited I am for my children to grow up and figure out the world.
March 13, 2018
A really very funny collection taken from Barry's long-running cartoon Ernie Pook's Comeek, centred round the character of Marlys. All the kids here, Marlys included, are absolutely children - they're not grown-ups with childish faces, they're exactly as flighty and imaginative and ridiculous as children actually are. (Not that I know any children, frankly I make a point of it. But I remember being one, along with my sister, and Marlys and co. are absolutely familiar.) It's all extremely recognisable, whether the kids are trying to make friends with a neighbour's dog, doing book reports for school, or sneaking off to go swimming with the good towels. The more you read through, the more you realise just how accomplished it all is.
November 2, 2018
So good! I had the wonderful luck of hearing her speak at a conference last week and it was one of the most inspiring and thought provoking talks I’ve heard. She, in her glorious braids and Chewbacca t-shirt, discussing wisdom teeth and kids and misfits and grandmas and drawing and so much more.
I’d read a little of her before the talk, now I’m going hog wild and reading it all. Buying what the library doesn’t have or can’t get in interlibrary loan.
I like that her cartoons have the spectrum of experiences and emotions, b/c even for kids that is what real life is.
It was sad to see that most of the adults in the kids’ lives constantly shouted at them and didn’t try to empathize. Have we moved a little beyond that in today’s world in dealing with kids? I hope so, but idk.
I’d read a little of her before the talk, now I’m going hog wild and reading it all. Buying what the library doesn’t have or can’t get in interlibrary loan.
I like that her cartoons have the spectrum of experiences and emotions, b/c even for kids that is what real life is.
It was sad to see that most of the adults in the kids’ lives constantly shouted at them and didn’t try to empathize. Have we moved a little beyond that in today’s world in dealing with kids? I hope so, but idk.
January 21, 2020
This book could be initially off-putting to some readers, owing to Lynda Barry’s somewhat crude personal style of drawing: I was slightly resistant myself. However, the style is used intelligently and fittingly to portray the thoughts and deeds of pre-teen girls living in 1960s America. The evocation of joy and misery, the sense of isolation, the small jealousies and injustices that are huge at that age: this is the stuff of Marlys (probably pronounced ‘Mar-liss’, a compound name like Louanne). Barry’s command of her medium, combined with her uncanny ability to mine the lives and souls of her subjects and their families, friends and dogs, makes this a richly rewarding collection that will be re-read in the future.
July 3, 2018
I was “riding a bummer” as Marlys would say, and needed some Marlys magic. She delivered. Nothing else I’ve ever read takes me back to childhood the way this does. Things flow out from the recesses of my memory. I’d forgotten about some of the heavier, poignant strips in the mix. But so much joy and beauty, too. And hilarity and wackiness. True to life.
Since this is a retrospective compilation, it was also interesting to see how Marlys developed - she started out as kind of a jerk and then transformed into the Marlys we know and love.
Since this is a retrospective compilation, it was also interesting to see how Marlys developed - she started out as kind of a jerk and then transformed into the Marlys we know and love.
November 10, 2019
The! Greatest! of! Marlys! is such an interesting look at the organic evolution of a character over time. Barry's voice as a writer is always amazing, and this compilation is such a fine example of how malleable the comic strip format really is, and how it can be so effectively utilized through different approaches to tell stories. She's honestly one of the most innovative cartoonist out there, and this book does an excellent job of showing why.
September 21, 2022
I had some fun with these comics, and Barry does a great job at bringing you right into a child’s mind. I loved reading these before bed but maybe I would have enjoyed it more if there was some type of flow in these comics instead of the randomness I was feeling. Maybe that’s on me for not reading some of her others works beforehand. Marlys and her cousins are great, light, carefree imaginary friends
October 4, 2019
These cartoons consist of little vignettes. Some of them are pleasant or charming or insightful. They seem to be both about and targeted at young girls. As such I wasn't all that personally captivated by them. And I can't say that I found the drawing style particularly pleasant to look at. I'll allow three stars for effort.
January 17, 2021
I first encountered Lynda Barry's "Ernie Pook's Comeek" in Toronto's weekly Now magazine and was immediately drawn to the 4-panel vignettes that perfectly distilled adolescent life through the eyes of Marlys and her friends. The stories are variously funny, sad and always, for me, nostalgic. This book collects some of the best of them.
July 21, 2021
I discovered Lynda Barry through Austin Kleon's very excellent weekly newsletter, and WOW! I love this book. I remember sitting for an entire long afternoon by the window in my living room alternately laughing and remembering. What I remember most about this book I read nearly four years ago is the real joy and connection I felt while reading it.
October 7, 2022
I did not actually finish this because it's a massive anthology of 4 panel comics and I didn't have the patience to go through all of it. The most impressive thing about Lynda Barry's work is her explosive imagination. She pulls out incredibly vivid and specific details from childhood like the magical feeling of walking through your elementary school ground after school hours. Gave me chills!
January 27, 2018
So many years ago I read Lynda Barry’s comics in the paper. I didn’t get them. The me of then couldn’t see them beyond the pieces. Reading them collected so many years later as a changed me changed how I see them. I’m in love with Marylis now and with Barry’s narrative genius.
April 3, 2018
This book really snuck up on me. So many of these stories reminded me of my own thoughts and experiences being a kid. The dog beat poetry section had me laughing so hard I was in tears. Lynda Barry is a genius.
May 24, 2018
Almost every page had me and my 13-yr-old laughing out loud. The middle section with story of Arnold and the was a bit "heavy" but other than that I LOVED this book. Really funny!
November 19, 2020
I never knew that Lynda Barry did syndicated strips, but I loved Syllabus and figured I’d pick this up. They were hit or miss for me, though mostly hit. Marlys is definitely an unforgettable character who made me chuckle.
January 31, 2023
Unexpectedly fun! This is outside the usual realm of what I read, but reading for the library challenge. Comics from the 80s-90s with a ton of fun cultural and time-specific throwbacks. I laughed out loud numerous times while making my way through it!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews