Lynda Barry on her knowledge, or lack thereof, of comics history

THOM POWERS: Something that I didn't realize, which came out when you were talking about Comic Book Confidential, is that you seem not to know a lot about comics history. I wanted to ask you how much you pay attention to other comics.
LYNDA BARRY: I have -- I don't know how to put it -- a real idiosyncratic relationship with comic strips. They were the reason I learned how to read. Before I could read, I knew in the Sunday papers where the comic strips were, and liked to look at the pictures. And I remember not being able to read, and I knew that was going to be able to read. I had heard people are able to read, and I felt confident that I would learn how to do it myself. So I remember picking the five comic strips that I would read for the rest of my life -- it was at the age of four or five that I was interested in making promises for the rest of my life; I understood the concept of "for the rest of your life." So I picked these. I picked some bad ones. Some ones I got stuck reading for the rest of my life. Dondi was one of them that thankfully got taken out of the paper, because I had to keep this vow. Brenda Starr was another one. Peanuts was one.
I don't feel educated on this. For instance, I had to write something for Blab! on how MAD magazine and EC comics affected me, and they didn't! Except for like MAD magazine mainly because - who did "The Lighter Side of..."?
POWERS: Dave Berg.
BARRY: See, that's an example. Anybody who's into comics would know it was Dave Berg, right? But all I know is that he draws really good teeth; I was obsessed with the way he drew teeth. "Spy vs. Spy" I really liked. But when I had to sit down and write the Blab! article, I didn't know anything about EC comics. Nothing. Zip. I learned more about it last night [during a screening of Comic Book Confidential] than I'd ever known. I feel sort of like the poor country cousin from Idaho who comes into the big city. People assume that just because you do comics, you're going to know something about them.