One! Hundred! Demons!

Everything Lynda Barry touches is earthy human gold.

One! Hundred! Demons! is one part memoir of a difficult childhood, one part comics how-to, and six parts warmth and humor and unruly red hair. It isn’t quite as dark as some of her other work, though it certainly gestures in that direction at times.

It also exemplifies Barry’s knack for finding beauty and delight inside the most difficult, unfair garbage life can throw at you. Such a great book.

A funny yet sensitive memoir anthology telling the story of author Lynda Barry's young life, growing up in the turbulent 1960s. The artwork is vibrant and unique, featuring everything from sequined collages to ghostly sumi ink sketches. The book served as both a creative and therapeutic outlet for the author, as she states in the introduction, and this definitely comes across through her many coming-of-age tales within the volume. One of the first alternative comics I was ever exposed to. This book deals with themes of drugs and sex, just to mention. 

Lynda Barry remembers exactly what it's like to be a kid and in her beautiful bold drawings, she shows you around her world so well you can smell the food bubbling away in her kitchen and the chain-smoking relatives stirring the pots. It's so sad and funny and human and Lynda’s energy leaps off every page making you wish you knew her.