A comiXologist recommends:
The Freddie Stories

by: Harris Smith

I’ve been reading Lynda Barry comics for almost as long as I’ve been reading.  Throughout my childhood, her strip “Ernie Pook’s Comeek” ran in the DC City Paper, as it did in man alternative weekly newspapers, alongside Charles Burns’ “Big Baby” and Matt Groening’s “Life in Hell.”  All three comics had a profound effect on me.  Burns’ strip was beautiful and inscrutable, but it was also, to my young mind, scary and confusing.  Groening’s was funny and cynical, but it never had a narrative to latch onto.  Barry split the difference perfectly.  "Ernie Pook’s Comeek" was everything.  One week’s strip might be hilarious, the next heartbreaking, and in between, she would often be elliptical and mysterious, in the way that childhood often is.  Barry’s art, though not as refined as Burns’, felt urgent and contemporary, frenetic in its busy energy, she never wasted an inch of comic that could be embellished with some funky detail or adornment.  It was the work, clearly, of a talented professional, but it also evoked the unpretentious enthusiasm of folk art.  "Ernie Pook’s Comeek" was perfect.  Lynda Barry was perfect.  I was lucky to discover her work in my formative years, both as a comics reader, and as a human being, in its evocation of the ephemeral, the imperceptible, the unspoken.  She taught me about nuance, about the humor that can be found in tragedy, and the sadness that is often at the root of humor.  

Some of the best of “Ernie Pook’s Comeek” can be found in the “The Freddie Stories,” a series of strips focused on the brother of the series’ main character, Marlys.  Freddie is a perennial outsider; a sensitive and somewhat troubled kid from a dysfunctional family, living in a milieu of lower class desperation and resentment.  "He is a gentle person in this juvenile delinquency world,“ says his sister in the books introduction, and this kindness earns him the label of "fag” from the tougher kids around him.  Freddie’s story takes a sad turn when his association with some of these kids earns him a stint in juvie, which pushes him towards something of a psychotic break, with bouts of depression and nightmarish hallucinations.   Though Freddie’s condition improves somewhat, this dissonance reverberates throughout the book.

Barry’s portrayal of childhood in “The Freddie Stories” is generally unsentimental, but it is entirely heartfelt.  She writes with an unflinching emotional honesty, humor and insight.  Freddie and the characters around him ring true, and though their exact experiences are not universal, the truths and emotions Barry draws from them are.  “The Freddie Stories” is, simply, cartooning at its best, from one of the masters of the craft.  Psychological!

[Read The Freddie Stories on comiXology]

Harris Smith is a Brooklyn-based comics and media professional. In addition to his role as a Senior Production Coordinator at comiXology, he edits several comics anthologies, including Jeans and Felony Comics, under the banner of Negative Pleasure Publications. He’s also the host of the weekly radio show Neagtive Pleasure on Newtown Radio.