Popular in the underground, Life in Hell was picked up by the Los Angeles Reader (an alternative weekly newspaper where Groening also worked as a typesetter, editor, paste-up artist and music critic) in 1980, where it began appearing weekly. The first strip, entitled 'Forbidden Words', appeared in the September/October issue. The magazine covers were humorous as well: the first issue saw Binky, a rabbit-humanoid character, standing in a cloud of smog and declaring, 'What you see is what you breathe.' Groening also worked real photos into the covers, such as drawings from Jules Verne's books or a picture of his family's living room.Īn editor from Wet magazine bought one of the magazines and liked it, and offered Groening a spot in the magazine soon after, in 1978, Life in Hell debuted as a comic strip in the avant-garde Wet, to which Groening made his first professional cartoon sale. These magazines contained comic strips, comedy sketches, letters, and photo collages. Groening photocopied and distributed the magazines to friends, and also sold them for two dollars a copy at the punk corner of the record store in which he worked, Licorice Pizza on Sunset Boulevard. He described it as 'every ex-campus protester's, every Boomer idealist's, conception of what adult existence in the '80s had turned out to be.' And then I had a series of lousy jobs.' In the comic book, Groening attacked what many young adults found repellent: school, work, and love.

It was inspired by his move to the city that year in an interview with Playboy, Groening commented on his arrival: 'I got on a Friday night in August it was about a hundred and two degrees my car broke down in the fast lane of the Hollywood Freeway while I was listening to a drunken DJ who was giving his last program on a local rock station and bitterly denouncing the station's management. Life in Hell started in 1977 as a self-published comic book Groening used to describe life in Los Angeles to his friends. Matt Groening created Life in Hell to describe life in Los Angeles to his friends.

Work Is Hell by Matt Groening