Sketches of a young Lynda Barry

I first met Lynda Barry when she came to my neighborhood to visit her friend Jane for the weekend. Jane and Lynda had lived in Seattle and were best friends. Jane's family just recently moved to the 'Burbs'. It was the summer of 1969. I was out in front of my folks house doing some sort of yard work, no doubt pulling weeds which seemed to be what I was doing all that summer since I was grounded for something 'horrific' as my mother called all the things I did at that time… I noticed two girls lying in the sun on the lawn across the street where Jane lived, laughing and talking.

Lynda's laugh was loud. It would echo throughout the neighborhood. She was in jeans and a thin cotton short sleeve blouse with a small flower pattern. I'm not sure why I can remember that kind of detail so many years later… They saw me watching them as I pulled the weeds. I even think I had my small mono cassette player with a speaker and was no doubt listening to the Beatles.

Jane and Lynda eventually came over and introduced themselves to me. They sat and watched me work as we got acquainted. From that day on, every time Lynda came over to visit Jane, the three of us would get together and hang out. There were many days that we and other teens from the neighborhood would gather in my parent's basement where we had a pool table, an old jukebox with a large speaker so we could play records loud.

During that first summer, Lynda tells me that she is going to write me a 100 page letter.

We talk on the phone many nights throughout the summer and she keeps me updated on how many pages she's written.

Lynda - "Guess what page I'm on?"

Alan - "I don't know... 23?"

Lynda - "Close!  I'm on 32!  Isn't that weird?!"

Alan - "What's weird?"

Lynda - "23 is 32 is reversed!"

Finally, the letter arrives in a Screaming Yellow Zonkers box. Lynda didn't quite make it to 100 pages, but it was great fun to read. I still have the box and letter filed away with my collection of works by Lynda.

Over the next few years, the teens on the block would plan 'Midnight Make Out Parties' (MMOPs). I noticed that these 'MMOPs' tended to happen more often when Lynda was visiting Jane. A time was set for a group of us to all gather, usually closer to 1 am, and a place was chosen, usually an abandoned house or if it was a warm summer night, we would just lay on someone's lawn under the stars. We would take turns pairing up with a different partner. It was very educational for me to see how different the girls kissed. Some would let your hands explore, while others, not so much....

There were times a gaggle of us would hang in my parent's basement playing pool, listening to music, reading my collection of ZAP Comix and take turns doing doodle drawing like the one pictured above. Lynda and I would take turns working on the same drawing. Since she was very talented, and I was more of a stick figure kind of guy, the drawings were a bit odd. I wish I had kept more of them.

We would also take turns reading stories from Zap Comix, each of us picking a character and reading their lines. Lynda tended to always be Mr. Natural, using her deep voice and I would play the nerd white guy that Mr. Natch always picked on. Most of the time we could not get through one comic strip since we ended up laughing so hard.

Sometime later, I got my first car, a 1958 Ford Fairlane. I made a trip to Seattle to visit Lynda, where I got to meet her mom and brothers. Lynda's room was in the basement and we ended up on her bed which was the only furniture in her room to sit on. She put on Santana Abraxas as we 'talked'. Her mother kept yelling down the stairs to Lynda, interrupting us. I think mom suspected what was really going on.

For several years I managed the Guild 45th Movie Theatre  in Seattle and when one of my friends needed a job, I would hire them to sell concessions. My friends Roger Junk and Lynda both worked for me when they needed money. (The above picture is one I took of her shoes that she drew on.  I just loved how they looked, so I took out my Polaroid SX-70 and took this shot of them). Whenever I needed some signage to promote a new candy that the cinema was stocking, I would have her draw large comic representations of the Milk Duds or Jr. Mints to hang from the ceiling. Eventually, Lynda got a better paying full time job in the corporate art department helping produce the newspaper ads for the theatres. I think Dan Bettis, who was the companies maintenance guy still has some of those candy displays.

My buddy, Roger Junk and I shared an apartment on Capitol Hill in Seattle for a time. We were both 'bachelors' and I came up with this idea that every time one of us was able to entice a woman over for a 'Visit', we would all sit on the back of the couch and have a camera take our picture. We were sort of trying to document the fact that we actually had some sort of life and after taking these photos, we would hang them on our living room walls. We both tended to not have much time for dating since we had fulltime jobs and were also working on our different art projects. Roger was a budding sculptor and I was a budding filmmaker/poet. Below is the sketch of me she did that night. You can see in our photo, the shirt she sketched. Lynda, of course was a budding painter / cartoonist. Lynda and I had gone to see a movie that night. I'm thinking it was Louis Bunuel's "That Obscure Object Of Desire" We then went back to my apartment to have some wine and visit with Roger.

Lynda started drawing me and later we took a picture of the 3 of us.

Then there was the time I hadn't seen Lynda for a while and I happened to be near her studio at 326 15th Ave in Seattle on Capitol Hill above a locksmith, so I yelled up to her 2nd story window. She came over and saw that it was me and invited me up. She was in the middle of working on her Naked Ladies series of paintings and had a deadline for a show. She was having some tea and poured me a cup as I looked at what she had completed. I noticed one of her "Poodle With A Mohawk" posters and reminded her that she had promised me one long ago. She apologized and said she knew where she might be able to get her hands on one for me. She wanted to trade one for my Blangy Satyricon posters, but the trade never happened. Later that day we walked to Volunteer Park and I took pictures of her next to a phallic stone thing (seen above) that we happened across. It cracked us both up that a big fancy house would have these at their entrance.

One Sunday morning, I got a call from Lynda in tears. Seems she was swinging her feet, by propping her body up off the floor, using the kitchen table and counter. Her foot swung into a chair leg and broke her toe. She couldn't find anyone to take her to the emergency room and called me. I had to be at work soon (Guild 45th) but I drove her and dropped her off. She had to wait with this guy who had a knife wound in his neck. He was holding his hand on his neck trying to stop the blood from spewing out. The Dr. asked if the guy could go first even though Lynda was there first. Lynda agreed that the guy might need more attention than her at that moment.

Lynda's first book that she produced for sale was a Xerox Book called TWO SISTERS.

She bound it in a manilla envelop with a cover picture that she hand colored and she also colored the envelope and tied it shut with colored yarn. Inside were Xerox's of comics.

Once when I was walking down the sidewalk, I ran into Lynda outside the Comet Tavern where she just got the new matches she designed for them. She asked if I had my car and whether I could give her a lift. I did and did. She saw my note to pick up a framed bunny poster and drew a cactus on the note with a thought bubble circled around "Pick Up Bunnies" The matches below is similar to the way she wrote on my note. I think we were in a bar around that time and she picked up some blank matchbooks and drew this image below.

I had rented a studio on Capitol Hill where I would work on my 16mm film projects. In my store front studio space (Now a coffee shop) I had fixed up a sort of living area, an office and my film editing bench. One night there was a knock on my door which was unusual. It was Lynda and a troupe of friends (mainly guys) who happened to be near by. She wanted to show them my studio and find out what I was working on. I invited them in and walked them around the studio.

I then showed them the film I was cutting which happened to be the one, and only, porno film I have ever worked on. It was called The Last Bath. I was cutting a blow job scene. They were very impressed with how I was trying to match the rhythm of the actress's head bobbing from one cut to the next. They call this 'Cutting on Action'. Lynda's troupe of friends couldn't believe that I could get paid to edit this kind of stuff and also couldn't believe that I could edit it without getting all 'hot and bothered'. I told them that after working on it for hours, it was just like viewing anything else... Like cutting shots of people walking, shots of people riding bikes or swimming. After showing them the scene forwards and backwards several times, they decided to leave me alone so I could finish my work. I thanked them for giving me a break and showed them to the door. I went back to my cutting of the scene. I finished it and went to bed. As I was drifting off to sleep, I heard another knock at my door. It was Lynda. This time alone. I invited her in and she asked if I had finished cutting the blow job scene. I had, and offered to show it to her. She said that she thought I did a good job but wondered if I needed to spend so much time trying to make the movements match. "I don't think the guys watching the film are going to notice..."

One of the first times I saw that Lynda's comix were being published in Seattle was in a small newspaper that has since gone out of existence called The Seattle Sun. Sometime after that I started to notice her work showing up in one of the main daily papers called The Seattle Times. Whenever I'd see her work in the papers I would keep a copy and add it to my collection of her works. Above are a few of the things I collected.

A close friend of mine for many years was Marvin Albert. He and I go way back to when I met him while he was producing a TV spot and I tagged along to help with the production. We had never discussed my relationship with Lynda during those years and one day he hands me a book that he had just published. The title: YOUNG MEN CAN SING. I immediately recognize the cover art work as being Lynda's and asked how he knew her. He said he had been following her work in the local papers and had contacted her to do the illustrations for his book. I went on to tell him about my many years of growing up with Lynda and I still kept up with her and her work. It was just a weird experience to have one friend hand me a project that he had worked on with another friend of mine...

Lynda copied one of my nonsense stories "Crying Rock" and illustrated it.

Lynda and I. Last photo in the camera and Junk got cut off.

Lynda Doodles and Doodles…

Lynda mailed this letter to me at the Harvard Exit Cinema where I was the manager.  She had stopped by to see a movie and when I saw her in line to buy tickets, I let her in.   We talked before the show and caught up on what each other were up to since we had not talked in awhile.

This was the last time I saw her before she went off and became famous...

Lobby of the Harvard Exit Cinema - Seattle Washington

Parting with Chewbacca….