Review by Woodrow Phoenix

It’s So Magic reprints the final collection in the series of books made from weekly comic strips by Lynda Barry. Her twelve years of Ernie Pook’s Comeek appearing in alternative weekly newspapers across the USA between 1988–1990 were originally published in the books Down The Street, The Fun House, The Freddie Stories, Come Over, Come Over, My Perfect Life and now It’s So Magic.

Subsequent reprints have combined books or added material from other places, such as regular stints in magazines or one-off pieces. Comics from Down The Street and The Fun House were reprinted in the extra-large The! Greatest! of! Marlys! in 2016. Her earliest comics made before Ernie Pook, collected in the long out of print volumes Girls and Boys, and Big Ideas were reprinted in Blabber Blabber Blabber: Volume 1 of Everything, in 2011.

Our last visit with the Mullen family through Maybonne and her little sister Marlys features the same blend of adolescent ‘firsts’, high school intrigues, misunderstandings and everyday heartbreaks that made previous volumes such compelling reading. Readers who have bonded with these characters will find it very difficult to watch what happens to the usually irrepressible Marlys as she falls in love for the first time. The family dynamics continue to shift as Freddie comes back into their lives, their Uncle John makes an appearance and is there a possibility they might be rescued from the backwater of their grandmother’s town, to return back home to their mom? It’s So Magic won an Eisner Award for ‘Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips’, just like the previous two books.

Readers who miss the joy of hanging out with these characters can see them again in Picture This: The Near-Sighted Monkey Book, part of Lynda Barry’s more recent series of books exploring the creative process through narrative writing and drawing exercises. But can there ever be enough Marlys? Not yet!