Lynda Barry

In a just world, Lynda Barry’s books would all be in print and Marlys would be as iconic as Charlie Brown. We do not, of course, live in a just world, but the fact remains that nobody has chronicled the awkward, lonely, and frequently exuberant weirdness of childhood and adolescence more righteously or faithfully than Barry. Her long-running Ernie Pook’s Comeek is a first-rate primer in the triumphant power of individuality, funk, and self-esteem in the face of what writer Barry Hannah once called “the gloomy usual.” If Charlie Brown had been blessed with a companion like the splendid Marlys instead of the wretched Lucy, how much happier might he have been? At the very least he would have learned the Funky Chicken. Barry’s wisdom and keen awareness of the dark crannies of the human heart (for really dark stuff, there’s her stunning novel, Cruddy) are precisely what make her humor so funny—and her overall work such truly great literature. 651-290-1221; www.fitzgeraldtheater.org??