New York Times profiles Lynda Barry

The New York Times has an interesting profile of alternative newspaper and author cartoonist Lynda Berry and the ups-and-downs of her career. She had an unpleasant childhood but was able to attend college where she became friends with Matt Groening, creator of Life in Hell and The Simpsons. It was there that she started drawing cartoons. Her career boomed with the raise of the alternative weeklies in the 1990’s with her feature, Ernie Pook’s Comeek, but also crashed when the weeklies merged and became corporate acquisitions. Her careers is reemerging again with the announcement that Drawn & Quarterly, a small comics publisher in Montreal, will be reprinting all of her Ernie Pook’s Comeeks.