Editing Life in Hell (section)

==History==
[[File:Matt Groening by Gage Skidmore -retouch.jpg|thumb|left|[[Matt Groening]] created ''Life in Hell'' to describe life in Los Angeles to his friends.]]
''Life in Hell'' started in 1977 as a [[self-publishing|self-published]] comic book Groening used to describe life in Los Angeles to his friends.<ref name="salon"/> It was inspired by his move to the city that year; in an interview with ''[[Playboy (magazine)|Playboy]]'', Groening commented on his arrival: "I got [to [[Los Angeles]]] on a Friday night in August; it was about a hundred and two [[Fahrenheit|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. And then I had a series of lousy jobs."<ref name=Ortved>{{cite book|last=Ortved|first=John|title=The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History |chapter=The Matt Groening Show|year=2009|publisher=Greystone Books|isbn=978-1-55365-503-9|pages=11–26}}</ref> In the comic book, Groening attacked what many young adults found repellent: school, work, and love. He described it as "every ex-campus protester's, every [[Baby boomers|Boomer]] idealist's, conception of what adult existence in the '80s had turned out to be."<ref name=Ortved/>

Groening photocopied and distributed the magazines to friends, and also sold them for two dollars a copy<ref name=Ortved/> at the [[punk subculture|punk]] corner of the record store in which he worked, [[Licorice Pizza (store)|Licorice Pizza]] on [[Sunset Boulevard]].<ref name="salon">{{cite web|title=Matt Groening |work=[[Salon.com]] |url=http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2001/01/30/groening/index.html |last=Chocano |first=Carina |date=January 30, 2001 |access-date=January 14, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070204032744/http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2001/01/30/groening/index.html |archive-date=February 4, 2007 }}</ref> These magazines contained comic strips, comedy sketches, letters, and photo collages. 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 other imagery into the covers, such as drawings from [[Jules Verne]]'s books and a photo of his family's living room.

An editor from [[Wet (magazine)|''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. The first strip, entitled "Forbidden Words", appeared in the September/October issue.<ref name="bigbook" /> Popular in the [[underground comix|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.<ref name="bigbook">{{cite book |last=Groening |first=Matt |author-link=Matt Groening |chapter=About the Author |title=The Big Book of Hell |year=1990 |publisher=Pantheon Books |location=New York |isbn=0-679-72759-0}}</ref> Then-publisher of the ''Reader'' Jane Levine said Groening arrived at editor-in-chief James Vowell's office one day, showing him his "silly cartoons with the rabbit with one ear." After Groening left, Vowell came out of his office saying, "This guy is gonna be famous someday."<ref name="Ortved" />

The character designs of Akbar and Jeff were, in fact, failed attempts by Groening to draw [[Charlie Brown]]. In a 1999 interview, Groening said that he added Akbar and Jeff to the comic to appease a girlfriend. Early on in the comic, Groening used Binky and his wife to mirror the arguments Groening himself had with this girlfriend. However, she grew irritated with Groening because she felt he was portraying her unfairly. The addition of the twin-like Akbar and Jeff was meant to act as a mask of anonymity to hide who was who in such arguments. According to Groening, however, she still told him, "You think you're Akbar, but you’re really Jeff."{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}}

In a 1991 interview about ''The Simpsons'', Groening said that ''Life in Hell'' was done entirely by himself, describing the comic as "Matt Groening pure and simple," and explained that the strips were often weird or entirely different every week because of however he was feeling at the time of a strip's creation.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}}

In November 1984, Groening's then-girlfriend (and co-worker at the ''Reader''), Deborah Caplan, decided to publish a compilation of Groening's cartoons as a book entitled "Love is Hell".<ref name="loveishell">{{cite book |last=Groening |first=Matt |author-link=Matt Groening |title=Love is Hell: Special Ultra Jumbo 10th Anniversary Edition |chapter=Introduction |year=1994 |publisher=Pantheon Books |location=New York |isbn=0-679-75665-5}}</ref> The book was an underground success, selling 22,000 copies in its first two printings. Caplan had already left her career in advertising sales at the ''Reader'' to manage the Life in Hell Co./Acme Features Syndicate full time, which managed [[print syndication|syndication]] and merchandising for Groening's ''Life in Hell'' cartoons. The gift line included t-shirts, mugs, calendars, and greeting cards.<ref name="latimesmag">{{cite book |last=Morgenstern |first=Joe |author-link=Joe Morgenstern |title=Los Angeles Times Magazine |chapter=Bart Simpson's Real Father |pages=12–18, 20, 22 |date=April 29, 1990}}</ref> With Caplan's management and promotional talents his cartoon went from being published in 11 free weeklies to over 250 papers nationwide. In 1986, after Groening and Caplan had married, they published ''Work is Hell'' plus two calendars, one with cartoonist [[Lynda Barry]]. Matt's books soon drew the attention of Pantheon/Randomhouse, which obtained the rights to distribute the books. In 1989, Life in Hell Cartoon Co/Acme closed its doors.

''Life in Hell'' reached the attention of Hollywood producer [[James L. Brooks]], who received one strip—"The Los Angeles Way of Death" from 1982—as a gift from fellow producer [[Polly Platt]].<ref name="americasfirstfamily">{{cite video|people=BBC|date=2000|title=The Simpsons: America's First Family (6 minute edit for the season 1 DVD)|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250735/|format=DVD|location=UK|publisher=20th Century Fox}}</ref><ref name="kim">{{cite web|title=Keep 'em Laughing |date=October 1999 |last=Kim |first=John W. |work=Scr(i)pt |url=http://www.snpp.com/other/interviews/groening99d.html |access-date=January 14, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070526133854/http://www.snpp.com/other/interviews/groening99d.html |archive-date=May 26, 2007 }}</ref> In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of developing a series of short animated [[sketch comedy|skit]]s, called "bumpers", for ''[[The Tracey Ullman Show]]''. Groening opted to not use the ''Life in Hell'' characters for the shorts, concerned that if the cartoons were not successful it would adversely affect the strip. Instead, Groening created an entirely new batch of characters: [[Simpson family|the Simpsons]].<ref name="avclub06">{{cite web |last1=Rabin |first1=Nathan |title=Matt Groening |url=https://www.avclub.com/matt-groening-1798209542 |website=The AV Club |access-date=19 February 2025 |date=26 April 2006}}</ref>

As television began to place more demands on his time, however, Groening came to almost exclusively feature single-panel strips or 16-panel grids in which Akbar and Jeff exchange terse jabs. This later period also saw the increase of autobiographical strips, perhaps because Groening was influenced by this burgeoning trend in [[alternative comics]].

Television had also made the strip "safe enough for a number of newspapers to print", according to Groening, who said he had not "toned the strip down at all, other than no longer using profanity"<ref name="flux">{{cite web|title=Life in Hell |work=Flux Magazine |url=http://www.snpp.com/other/interviews/groening95.html |last=Paul |first=Alan |date=September 30, 1995 |access-date=January 14, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070208235641/http://www.snpp.com/other/interviews/groening95.html |archive-date=February 8, 2007 }}</ref> as a concession to daily papers that carried the strip.<ref name="motherjones">{{cite web | title=Matt Groening | work=[[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]] | url=https://www.motherjones.com/arts/qa/1999/03/groening.html | last=Doherty | first=Brian | date=March–April 1999 | access-date=January 14, 2007}}</ref>

Groening registered the eponymous domain mattgroening.com on December 7, 1998, ostensibly to publish ''Life in Hell'' online; although Groening remarked in 2003 that he planned to eventually add content to the site,<ref name="ojr">{{cite web|url=http://www.ojr.org/ojr/entertainment/1042169162.php |title=Doh! Groening's Guide to Digital Cartooning |date=January 2003 |work=USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051026112352/http://www.ojr.org/ojr/entertainment/1042169162.php |archive-date=October 26, 2005 |url-status=dead }}</ref> nothing substantial has ever been posted to it. An index page consisting of an image of Binky captioned "This site is under construction" was in place from 2001 through 2011;<ref>{{cite web |title=MGP |url=http://www.mattgroening.com/ |website=mattgroening.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010721102346/http://www.mattgroening.com/ |archive-date=July 21, 2001}}</ref> since then, the site has simply consisted of generic [[Domain parking|parked domain]] landing pages.

Groening decided in 2007, in the wake of the [[2006 United States elections]], to write "Life Is Swell" above the comic instead of "Life in Hell".<ref name="laweekly">{{cite web | title=Matt Groening: Life is Swell | work=[[LA Weekly]] | url=http://www.laweekly.com/2007-07-19/news/matt-groening-life-is-swell/  | last=Shulman | first=Dave | date=July 19, 2007 | access-date=September 23, 2008}}</ref> Though Groening had previously stated that he would never give up the comic strip,<ref name="tvhost">{{cite web|title=Prime time is heaven for 'Life in Hell' Artist |work=TV Host |url=http://www.snpp.com/other/interviews/groening89.html |last=Leopold |first=Todd |date=December 16, 1989 |access-date=March 23, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070102171637/http://snpp.com/other/interviews/groening89.html |archive-date=January 2, 2007 }}</ref> in 2009 he indicated that due to troubling times for print newspapers and constant involvement with ''The Simpsons'' and ''Futurama'', he would likely one day drop the strip.<ref name="CNN">{{cite news | title=Matt Groening looks to the future | work=CNN | url=http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/26/matt.groening.futurama/index.html | last=Bergman | first=Erik H. | date=February 26, 2009 | access-date=February 26, 2009}}</ref> Three years later, Groening announced the strip's conclusion and the final new strip ran on June 16, 2012.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/story/2012-06-19/matt-groening-life-in-hell/55698336/1|title='Life in Hell' is over for cartoonist Matt Groening|author=Graham, Jefferson|work=[[USA Today]]|access-date=June 20, 2012|date=June 19, 2012}}</ref> The final strip shows Akbar or Jeff dancing naked, while the other tells him to stop. At the end of the strip he gives up and dances along with him, saying "Well, I tried."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/06/22/matt-groening-and-the-reader-joined-at-the-hip |last=Miner |first=Michael |title=Matt Groening and the ''Reader''&ndash;joined at the hip |website=[[Chicago Reader]] |date=June 22, 2012 |access-date=January 31, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120628085511/https://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/06/22/matt-groening-and-the-reader-joined-at-the-hip |archive-date=June 28, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref>