Here’s a link to an interview with Lynda Barry on the Onion AV Club. I was just recently leafing through the downsized Baltimore City Paper wondering what happened to her–she ended her 30-year-old weekly strip due to the decline of the free weekly newspaper market. She’s doing a lot of teaching now, and writing books.

I started to think about the role of play, and its role in mental health. If I ask a 40-year-old woman “I have paper and a paintbrush, you wanna paint?” and she says “no,” we understand that. If there’s a 4-year-old and you say “You wanna paint?” and she says “no,” we worry about her emotionally.