Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

I'm Jesse Thorn, it's Bullseye.

Fuck, I've been saying it for years, but Linda Barry is a genius. She's a comics artist

and writer. She started her career as an undergrad at Evergreen College. She made a regular comic

there called Ernie Pooke's Comic. I hope I'm saying that right. It ran for almost 30 years.

She's written over a dozen books, some of them novels, most of them compilations, and more recently, some how-to books.

I'm not sure if I can read it, but I'm sure it's a good idea.

Her work is usually at least somewhat autobiographical. She talks about her childhood, her family, her past relationships.

The stories are funny but also poignant.

Lately, she's been teaching. She's an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and she has published a book about it, sort of. It's called Making Comics.

It came out last year. It is amazing. It's her third instructional book about creativity. The heart of it is a belief that Linda has.

Anyone can draw. Anyone can make comics. The struggle, she says, is putting pen to paper and getting out of your head long enough to actually make something.

That very practical philosophy, combined with a 40-plus year career of making a book about creativity.

Like I said, genius, anyway. Enough introduction. It's time to welcome back to the show. My friend, the brilliant one and only, Linda Barry. Let's get into it.

Linda Barry, welcome back to Bullseye. It's nice to have you back on the show.

I'm delighted to be back.

Congratulations on being an official genius. I'm very happy for you.

Thank you very much.

Linda, why did you want to write a book specifically about comics to follow up your... what is now becoming a string of books about how to be creative?

Well, one of the reasons was because of everybody that I've ever met who, when they find out that I'm a cartoonist, always says I wish I could draw.

I know that people can draw. After teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for about seven years, I kind of had a bunch of recipes for how to make that happen.

So that's the book making comics. It's kind of like a recipe book or a cookbook that's full of these exercises.

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