Binky, We Hardly Knew Ye: Groening Ends His LIFE IN HELL Comic Strip

[onehandle]

Source: NPR



"Love," wrote Matt Groening, "is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, trapping you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." Say that last bit out loud: At night, the ice weasels come.

I put it to you that if Groening's weekly alt-comic LIFE IN HELL, which ended last Saturday after 1,669 installments, had given the world nothing else but "At night, the ice weasels come," it would have been enough. Dayenu, LIFE IN HELL. Dayenu. But of course, over the course of its 34-year syndicated lifetime, it gave the world much, much more. The Simpsons, for one thing. Indirectly.

In 1985, producer James L. Brooks asked Groening if he wanted to turn his scribbly, scathingly satiric strip starring anthropomorphic rabbits with overbites and existential dread into a series of animated shorts to be featured on The Tracey Ullman Show. Groening, wisely, knew that doing so would relinquish his ownership of the characters, and pitched a series of cartoons based on his own family instead: Keep the overbites, the dread, the satiric impulse, but lose the rabbit ears and add a bit more heart (Brooks' influence).

Meanwhile, the LIFE IN HELL strip took off. Beginning in 1986, themed collections appeared in bookstores with titles that perfectly encapsulated the strip's gleefully defiant defeatism — Love is Hell, Work is Hell, School is Hell, Childhood is Hell, etc.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/06/20/155425230/binky-we-hardly-knew-ye-groening-ends-his-life-in-hell-comic-strip

[Fearless]

1. It'll be interesting to see what he does next!

[xxqqqzme]

2. I remember those early Simpsons

cuz I loved watching Tracey Ullman.

[PoliticAverse]

7. Go Home! Go Home! n/t

[truedelphi]

3. One of my favorite "Life in Hell'" installments

Was this huge panel that listed "A Bad Day in The Life,"

And then various alt lifestyles.

For instance, the drummer's bad day in his life was when his girlfriend kicked him out and he had to live in is car with his drums.

The kicker for me was this one:

"Bad day in the life of a poet is when he finds out another poet has written a really good poem." But they are all good. How anyone with the kind of success that the Simpsons afforded them yet still took the energy to do this amazes me.

Matt is a miracle.

[Drunken Irishman]

9. And then you've got Seth MacFarlane...

Who keeps getting shows on FOX and, outside American Dad!, none are any good. Family Guy isn't even enjoyable anymore and The Cleveland Show, while it has its moments, is hardly memorable.

[bongbong]

11. McFarlane

He's talented, but he copies a lot of "his" stuff from other people. South Park is famous for mocking him (in contrast, they are on record as worshiping "The Simpsons&quot . Stewie is a direct rip/copy of "Jimmy Corrigan", which preceded "Family Guy" by 3 years. Google McFarlane plagiarism ....

[Drunken Irishman]

12. Agreed...

Family Guy used to be funny but hasn't been funny since its second return to FOX back in 2005. It's lazy, especially today, where half the episode is cutaways or just random shit pulled from YT.

I think that's why I like American Dad! the most because it reminds me of why I liked FG early in its run.

Also, the humor in Family Guy is secondary to offending. I don't mind offensive jokes, if the jokes are funny. Most of their Jew jokes? Not funny. Yet they keep doing 'em.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

15. I find him excruciatingly misogynistic.

Sure his calling card is equal opportunity offensiveness, but females never get their "we know this bigotry shit is bogus" moments. No, in MacFarlane's world, girls really are shite.

[Smilo]

4. Life In Hell.......

what it would be like under a Romney presidency.

[Robb]

5. Aw.

[geardaddy]

6. I loved that strip

I have the Big Book of Hell. Sorry to see it go.

[MADem]

8. When you're old enough to see the start and the finish, it makes ya feel antiquated. nt

[TlalocW]

10. Wow, 34 years. I never really thought about it being around that long

I have several of the collections, and the alternative/urban free weekly newspaper in the city where I used to live ran it as well. I've known and used the ice weasel quote since first reading it. Poets (especially bad ones) seem to have been a favorite target of his over the years.

TlalocW

[struggle4progress]

13. Mistakes were made

[Nostradammit]

14. My wife and I often quote an interchange between Akbar & Jeff:

"Nice and toasty?" one of us will ask.

"Warm and roasty" is the only acceptable response.


Thanks Matt for all the laughs over the years!

[OrwellwasRight]

16. Love is Hell!

[Kolesar]

17. Work is hell

But I would miss those waxy donuts
Great job, Matt!

[catzies]

18. I love Life in Hell even more that the Simpsons and I (still) love the Simpsons

Read him every week until the LA Weekly dropped him, may they be forever cursed for doing so. Heard it was in a Pasadena alt weekly but never could find which one.

[IMG][/IMG]

I am so glad I told him when I met him at UCLA what Life in Hell meant to me and how grateful I was he kept doing it long after the Simpsons made him rich enough and he didn't have to.