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Matt [Groening] and I totally dug each other from the very first, though from a distance—because I thought he was really square and I believe he thought (rightly) that I was an excitable and intense hippy. Once he became editor of our school paper, I used to write the most insane letters to the editor I could think of, signing any kind of name to them, and he would print them. He probably knew who they were from, but I liked thinking he had no idea.

I used to love dropping in at the paper to stare at him because he looked like the straightest guy on the whole campus. This was in 1976 at a hippie college in Olympia, Washington.

He actually wore a shirt and pants. A shirt with buttons and actual pants.

That’s Lynda Barry talking, in an interview published in issues 54 and 55 of The New-York Ghost. I’d post PDFs of the issues, but I’m not sure it’s kosher. But you can get free copies by going to the Ghost site and asking, I think. (At least issue 55. Don’t get mad at me if I’m wrong, please.) It’s worth it for Barry fans. Only a few paragraphs of Don Quixote stuff before it gets good.