Awarded a 2019 MacArthur Genius Grant
Eternally wise and strange." - NPR
"Barry is pushing the envelope on understanding how the brain creates and responds to words and pictures - a scholarly envelope that, in her mind, should be positively covered with illuminating doodles." - The Washington Post
" Making Comics is stuffed to the gills with Barry's friendly wisdom, characteristic doodles, and mind-expanding exercises." - Paris Review
"Barry pairs a spirit of wise and open encouragement with a demand for rigor. . . The underlying thesis of Making Comics is that anyone can discover their own cartooning genius, if they are willing to put in the work." - Salon
"What's most delightful about Making Comics is its emphasis on action, on exercise, on practice - on actual making." - New Republic
"Part motivational lecture, part creative writing exercise, part group therapy session, and part trippy meditation on memory and play. . . Barry is not only a genius herself but an encourager of genius in others." - The Nation
"[ Making Comics ] will help anyone, adult or child, to regain the spirit of freedom, improvisation and joy." - KCRW Bookworm 's Best Books of 2019
"One of the best books on unlocking creativity I've ever read: humane, interdisciplinary, fun, and in touch with something deep and mysterious." - Boing Boing Best Books of 2019
"An instructional book that doubles as a work of art. . . These lessons from Barry, like her art, capture her own brand of magic: a synthesis of theory, practice, memory, imagination, and "a certain sort of unlearning." - Publishers Weekly starred review
"The activities, drawn from Barry's own magical classroom, are fun, flexible, and easy to follow [while] the reality that art drives and sustains us, if we let it, is present on every page. . . An engaging combination of how-to and why-you-must, perfect for anyone with a story itching to be told." - Library Journal, Starred Review
"[ Making Comics ] feels like taking a class from Marlys while stuck in the living room at your cousin's house, and it's a delightful, shed-your-inhibitions-about-your-talent kind of instruction." - Chicago Reader
"[ Making Comics is] full of drawing exercises that help you access your creativity and silence your inner critic." - CBC Q
" Making Comics is both a tool kit of her comics-making exercises and a tender manifesto about how anyone can create." - Lit Hub
"There's a serious theoretical underpinning here, and Barry's lighthearted and genuinely fun approach is directly in service of it: banishing your inner critic, developing a disciplined (but playful) practice, and dismantling beliefs about what constitutes a "good" comic is key to finding something organic, original, and true." - Booklist, starred review
"A sequential art legend known for her imaginative and deeply personal work. . . shares her comics-making exercises that detail her creative curriculum." - My Modern Met
"A lesson in rekindling our inner spark. . . part philosophical discussion, part memoir, and part straight-into-the-vein fun." - Black Girl Nerds
"I've read a lot of writing and drawing textbooks, and Barry's is the only one that has made me choke up with emotion." - Pop Matters
"Delightful. . . [ Making Comics ] offers a thoughtful, clear, step-by-step approach to generating creative work in words and pictures, which is daunting when a person is staring at a blank page and wondering how they could possibly begin." - New City Lit
"
