Book Review: What It Is

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What It is by Lynda Barry | Photo 02

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This review was first published on Parka Blogs.

This book screamed "Buy me!" when I saw it at the Drawn & Quarterly booth at San Diego Comic Con 2009. It is that good!

With a brush in the right hand, and a pencil on the left, the multi-eyed monster on the back cover spoked, "Welcome to writing the unthinkable". That's the essence of this book created by Lynda Barry, putting vivid imagination onto paper.

What It Is is a scrapbook that's filled to the brim with sketches, coloured illustrations, collages, comics, autobiographical writing, random thoughts and even a bit on creative writing.

Every page is elaborately decorated, an exploration into the unknown realms of imagination. And every page is just fun to look at.

This book is creativity and self expression, great for flipping through when you're feeling random or looking for inspiration.

I'll give this book two thumbs (drawn with smiley faces) up.

By the way, What It Is won the 2009 Eisner award for Best Reality-Based Work, but I didn't know that when I bought it. It's also one of the top 100 books picked by Amazon editors for 2008.