Barry is an award-winning author and cartoonist with the School of Education’s Art Department. The associate professor of interdisciplinary creativity holds the Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art.

Describing her alternative comics as “gloriously wild,” Comicsverse details her long and prolific career, starting with “Ernie Pook’s Comeek,” which was originally published without her knowledge in 1978.

Barry focuses on engaging with the image and what it can be; she has published multiple instructive comics in addition to what she calls “autobifictionalography” comics. These instructive comics, like “What it is” and “Syllabus,” give readers guided prompts for drawing. A lot of her ideas for these comics, according to Comicverse, have come from her teaching and work at UW-Madison.

Comicsverse describe her work in “One! Hundred! Demons!” —  calling it daring and honest. They praise her storytelling ability, noting the way she blurs the boundary between word and image: “Each letter is part of the artwork, formulating an intensely layered narrative experience.”

She has earned numerous awards for her work. In 2009, her comic “What it is” received an Eisner for Best Reality-Based work. Later, Barry was inducted to the Eisner Hall of Fame. She is known for her ability to push the relationship to art and the world in her work.

Read Comicverse’s entire spotlight here.