Life in Hell

Life in Hell is a weekly comic strip by Matt Groening. The strip features anthropomorphic rabbits and a pair of gay lovers. Groening uses these characters to explore a wide range of topics about love, sex, work, and death. His drawings are full of expressions of angst, alienation, self-loathing, and fear of inevitable doom.

History
Life in Hell started in 1977 as a self-published comic book Groening used to describe life in Los Angeles to his friends. It was inspired by his move to the city that year; in an interview with Playboy, Groening commented on his arrival: "I got [to Los Angeles] 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 deejay 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." 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 Boomer idealist's, conception of what adult existence in the '80s had turned out to be."

Groening photocopied and distributed the comic book to friends. He also sold it for two dollars a copy at the "punk" corner of the record store in which he worked, Licorice Pizza on Sunset Boulevard. Life in Hell debuted as a comic strip in the avant-garde Wet magazine in 1978, to which Groening made his first professional cartoon sale. The first strip, entitled "Forbidden Words", appeared in the September/October issue. 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. 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."

The strip was frequently a serial, discussing various topics such as "Love is Hell", a 1984 "13-chapter miniseries" pontificating on love and relationships. In November of that year, Groening's then-girlfriend (and co-worker at the Reader) Deborah Caplan offered to publish "Love is Hell" in book form. The book was an underground success, selling 22,000 copies in its first two printings. Soon afterward, Caplan and Groening left the Reader and put together the Life in Hell Co., which handled syndication and merchandising for Groening’s projects.

Life in Hell reached the attention of Hollywood producer James L. Brooks, who received one strip &mdash; "The Los Angeles Way of Death" from 1982 &mdash; as a gift from fellow producer Polly Platt. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of developing a series of short animated skits, called "bumpers", for The Tracey Ullman Show. Originally, Brooks had wanted Groening to adapt his Life in Hell characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights to his characters, Groening instead created an entirely new batch of characters, the Simpsons.

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 has also made the strip "safe enough for a number of newspapers to print", according to Groening, who claims that he has not "toned the strip down at all, other than no longer using profanity" as a concession to daily papers that carry the strip.

On December 7, 1998 Groening registered the domain mattgroening.com to publish Life in Hell online; however, the Web site has remained in its "under construction" state since then, although Groening insists he'll "get around to it ... [when he's] ready to wade in on a regular basis."

Groening decided in 2007, in the wake of the 2006 U.S. election results, to write "Life Is Swell" above the comic instead of "Life in Hell." Though Groening had previously stated that he would never give up the comic strip, in 2009 he admitted that due to troubling times for print newspapers and constant involvement with The Simpsons and Futurama, he may have to drop the strip one day.

Recurring characters

 * Binky is a bitter, depressed and thus "normal" rabbit and star of the cartoon. He usually embodies dread and alienation. Binky is usually stuck in a dead end job, has a bad apartment and regularly sees a therapist. Binky usually is full of wise old sayings.


 * Sheba is Binky's estranged girlfriend. Appearance-wise, she is "basically Binky in drag." Binky and Sheba met at a coffee shop in a 1981 storyline, and are often used as a generic couple whenever Groening needs one.

He also appeared in The Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror XII as one of the rabbits that Homer catches in the trap.
 * Bongo is Binky's illegitimate son, the product of a drunken night of "jungle passion." He was introduced in a 1983 storyline in which his mother, Hulga, left him to Binky so she could seek her fortune in New York. Bongo's defining physical attribute is his one ear, which Groening admits is solely so that the casual viewer can tell him apart from Binky. Bongo once made an appearance in the Futurama episode Xmas Story, where he is seen being sold in a pet shop.
 * Akbar & Jeff are described in various strips and interviews as "brothers or lovers...and possibly both". In one interview, Groening says they are gay. They have large noses and wear fezzes and Charlie Brown-like striped shirts. They have run numerous businesses over the years, including Akbar & Jeff's Tofu Hut, Akbar & Jeff's Earthquake T-Shirt Hut, and Akbar & Jeff's Bootleg "Akbar & Jeff" T-Shirt Hut. Like Binky and Sheba, Akbar and Jeff are often used as a generic couple when needed. According to Groening, "the reason why I draw a strip with Akbar and Jeff instead of Binky and Sheba is that I figure that no one can accuse me of trying to score points against men or women if the characters are identical." They have been given cameo appearances in The Simpsons, such as during "Homer's Triple Bypass", where Homer uses finger puppets resembling the characters to describe his surgery to Bart and Lisa.


 * Matt Groening appears in the strip as a bearded, bespectacled rabbit. He is also sometimes represented as Binky.


 * Will and Abe are Matt Groening's two sons, represented in rabbit form.


 * Snarla, a cat, is Bongo's classmate and love interest. She bears a resemblance to Lisa Simpson.


 * Bart Simpson, has never spoken - except when he uttered his former catch phrase "Don't have a cow, man!" in a "forbidden words" strip - but is seen in the background of a number of strips.


 * Mr. Simpson is Binky's anthropomorphic dog boss at his job. His name predates The Simpsons.


 * Gooey, Screwy, and Ratatouille are Akbar and/or Jeff's triplet nephews. The names are an obvious spoof of the Disney characters Huey, Dewey and Louie (Donald Duck's nephews).

Recurring jokes and situations

 * Fake magazines such as "Lonely Tyrant: The magazine for abusive bosses whose employees hate their guts." Stories inside include, "The fine art of the meaningless memo."
 * The X types of Y: The 9 types of college teachers, the 81 types of high school students, the 16 types of brothers, the 9 types of relationships.
 * How-To Guides: Examples include "So You Want To Be An Unrecognized Genius," "How To Be a Clever Film Critic," and "How To Get Into The College of Your Choice."
 * Miniseries - A series of strips focusing on a particular theme in a mock textbook manner, such as "School is Hell" and "Love is Hell," both of which have been collected in their entirety in book form.
 * Akbar & Jeff discussing their relationship - Arguably the most common set-up. A 1992 strip, "The Dart Game of Love," was prefaced with "I hope this cartoon pleases you gripers who whined about all those Akbar & Jeff strips where they stared at each other."
 * Binky attempting to meditate
 * Advertisements for disreputable businesses run by Akbar & Jeff such as "Akbar & Jeff's Lucky Psychic Hut."
 * Bongo locked in a detention room
 * Bongo unsatisfied with the huge assortment of presents he has received on Christmas morning
 * Shadow rabbit - Binky's looming shadow towers over Bongo, who has clearly committed a crime despite his assurances to the contrary. Occasionally there would also be a shadow Akbar & Jeff looming over Bongo and their nephews.
 * Forbidden Words - An annual compilation of buzzwords used over the past year that Groening has deemed "forbidden."
 * "How to draw Binky"

Merchandise and advertising
After the success of Love is Hell, more book collections followed, including Work is Hell and Childhood is Hell. To date, 15 books have been released.

In addition to the books, the comic also spawned T-shirts, greeting cards, posters, coffee mugs, and a short-lived newsletter called the "Life in Hell Times." There is also an annual calendar.

In the late 1980s, Groening drew several print advertisements for Apple Computer in the form of Life in Hell comic strips.

At the 2005 Comic-Con in San Diego, a series of deluxe Life in Hell vinyl figurines manufactured by CritterBox Toys was announced.

Several characters from Life In Hell make a cameo appearance in Gary Wolf's 1981 noir novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?

Books

 * 1986 - Love is Hell - (ISBN 0-394-74454-3)
 * 1986 - Work is Hell - (ISBN 0-394-74864-6)
 * 1987 - School is Hell - (ISBN 0-394-75091-8)
 * 1988 - Box Full of Hell - (ISBN 0-679-72111-8)
 * 1988 - Childhood is Hell - (ISBN 0-679-72055-3)
 * 1989 - Greetings from Hell - (ISBN 0-679-72678-0)
 * 1989 - Akbar and Jeff's Guide to Life - (ISBN 0-679-72680-2)
 * 1990 - The Big Book of Hell - (ISBN 0-679-72759-0)
 * 1991 - With Love From Hell - (ISBN 0-06-096583-5)
 * 1991 - How to Go to Hell - (ISBN 0-06-096879-6)
 * 1992 - The Road to Hell - (ISBN 0-06-096950-4)
 * 1994 - Binky's Guide to Love - (ISBN 0-06-095078-1)
 * 1994 - Love is Hell: Special Ultra Jumbo 10th Anniversary Edition - (ISBN 0-679-75665-5)
 * 1997 - The Huge Book of Hell - (ISBN 0-14-026310-1)
 * 2007 - Will and Abe's Guide to the Universe - (ISBN 0-06-134037-5)