Legendary graphic novelist, cartoonist, and educator Lynda Barry was announced this morning as one of the recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the “genius grant.” The MacArthur Foundation praised Barry’s work as “inspiring creative engagement through original graphic works and a teaching practice centered on the role of image making in communication.”
Barry, 63, is best known as the creator of the long-running comic strip “Ernie Pook’s Comeek,” which debuted in 1979 and ran in over 70 alternative newspapers across the United States. She is also known for her work as a graphic novelist, including “The Good Times Are Killing Me” (1988), “One! Hundred! Demons!” (2002), a unique series of vignettes inspired by a 16th-century monk’s paintings; and “Cruddy” (1999), a novel about adolescence which The New York Times characterized as “a work of terrible beauty.”
In her more recent career, Barry has shifted her focus to education, sharing her cartooning wisdom online and through a series of well-regarded books on the creative process. “I love teaching,” Barry said in her MacArthur interview. “What I’m doing isn’t even teaching, it’s almost like showing people that they already know how to do this stuff.” “What It Is,” her graphic novel that functions as an interactive workbook and creative guide, won the 2009 Eisner Award for Best Reality Based Work.
As one of 26 recipients of the 2019 fellowship, Barry will receive $625,000 of no-strings-attached funding, paid out in quarterly installments over five years. Barry is the fourth cartoonist to be awarded this honor, following Alison Bechdel, Ben Katchor, and Gene Luen Yang. Her upcoming book, “Making Comics” is set to be published by Drawn and Quarterly in November 2019. In the meantime, you can check the full list of this year’s MacArthur Fellows here.
