It’s well known that Matt Groening created The Simpsons, something that is very important
to me, and given his first new show in nearly two decades premieres this week I wanted to go back
and take a look at his most overlooked project, the comic strip Life In Hell.
Groening grew up in Portland, Oregon.
He admits to being raised in front of the television and became interested in cartooning
after seeing the film One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
He also cites Charles Schulz as another early influence.
In the mid-seventies he attended The Evergreen State College.
It was here he met and befriended acclaimed cartoonist Lynda Barry, whom he would later
claim is his biggest inspiration.
That’s so adorable.
In 1977, Groening moved to Los Angeles in hopes of finding a career as a writer.
To support himself he worked several menial jobs within the service industry, it’s good
to see not much has changed there, and Life In Hell would be born out of these experiences.
It began as a self-published comic, intended to illustrate to his friends back home what
life was like living in Los Angeles.
Copies were also sold at Licorice Pizza, a record store where Groening worked as a clerk.
He sold his first professional cartoon in 1978 to WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing.
Founded by artist Leonard Koren, the magazine was a milestone in American graphic design
and was instrumental in the development of New Wave and Postmodern aesthetics.
The following year, Groening was hired as an assistant editor at the Los Angeles Reader,
a weekly alternative newspaper.
The paper began running his cartoons after he showed his work to the editor and on April
25, 1980, Life In Hell debuted.
The strip stars neurotic rabbit Binky and follows his anxiety-ridden adventures through
work, love and loss.
He is supported by his one-eared, illegitimate son Bongo and estranged girlfriend Sheba,
as well as lovers Akbar and Jeff.
Life In Hell’s humour is very much rooted in alienation and the characters are often
used to express Groening’s own angst towards society and its institutions.
I particularly identify with the way work is portrayed, not only as soul crushing but
as a source of debilitating fear and anxiety.
In terms of style, Life In Hell frequently experiments with format.
The number of panels varies from strip to strip and can consist of as little as one
though I find it really shines when it completely breaks out of traditional structure.
The way faces are drawn is very familiar and this is probably Groening’s most distinguishable
characteristic.
From the very beginning Life In Hell was a hit.
In 1984, Groening’s then-girlfriend Deborah Caplan offered to publish an anthology of
romantic-themed strips in book form.
The result, Love Is Hell, went on to sell 22,000 copies and a follow-up, Work is Hell,
was released in 1986.
It caught the attention of television producer James L. Brooks, who contacted Groening about
adapting Life In Hell as a series of interstitials for The Tracey Ullman Show.
Fearing he’d lose ownership or have his comic tarnished should the show fail, Groening
instead quickly come up with a dysfunctional family, which of course was The Simpsons.
Despite the popularity and stress associated with producing, not only the Simpsons but
eventually a second show, Futurama, Life In Hell continued to be produced weekly, syndicated
in 250 newspapers.
From the sounds of it, Groening used it as a creative release, vowing it would never
end, though Life In Hell concluded in 2012.
Had The Simpsons not been successful I think Groening would be remembered in the same vein
as R. Crumb, and by that I of course mean a subversive underground cartoonist not the
other things Crumb has been outed for.
For the time there are some really progressive ideas here which is why it was a shame to
see his weak response to the recent Apu controversy.
Nevertheless, I am very excited for Disenchantment and recommend anyone who is a fan of The Simpsons
or Futurama to give Life In Hell a chance.
In my opinion, it’s Groening’s most personal work and I believe it is the most accurate
reflection of who he is, as an artist and as an individual.
I suppose this concludes our unofficial Matt Groening trilogy.
I encourage you to go back and check out The Simpsons Phenomenon In Promo and Print as
well my unboxing of season three of Futurama, and apparently a lot of unresolved baggage.
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