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Life in Hell, quietly retitled Life is Swell in 2007, is a weekly comic strip
Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings that tells a story.Currently in the Western world, most comic strips are written and drawn by a comics artist or cartoonist, and many such strips are published on a recurring basis in newspapers and on the Internet....
 by Matt Groening
Matt Groening

Matthew Abram Groening is an United Statesn cartoonist, screenwriter and television producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell and the television series The Simpsons and Futurama....
. The strip features anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of uniquely human characteristics to non-human creatures and beings, natural and supernatural phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts....
 rabbits and a pair of gay lovers
Homosexuality

Homosexuality refers to human sexual behavior or same-sex attraction between people of the same sex or to homosexual orientation. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "having sexual and romantic attraction primarily or exclusively to members of one?s own sex"; "it also refers to an individual?s sense of personal and social identi...
. 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
Angst

Angst is a German language and Dutch language word for fear or anxiety. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of strife. The term Angst distinguishes itself from the word Furcht in that Furcht usually refers to a material threat , while Angst is usually a nondirectional emotion....
, alienation
Social alienation

In sociology and critical social theory, alienation refers to an individual's estrangement from traditional community and others in general. It is considered by many that the Atomism of modernity means that individuals have shallower relations with other people than they would normally....
, self-loathing, and fear of inevitable doom.

ife in Hell started in 1977 as a self-published
Self-publishing

Self-publishing is the publishing of books and other Mass media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers....
 comic book
Comic book

A comic book is a magazine or book of narrative artwork and dialog and descriptive prose. The style was introduced in 1934. Despite the term, comic books do not necessarily feature humorous subject-matter; in fact, it is often serious and action-oriented....
 Groening used to describe life in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles

Los ?ngeles is the Capital of the Biob?o Province, in the municipality of the same name, in Regions of Chile VIII , in the center-south of Chile....
 to his friends.






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Life in Hell, quietly retitled Life is Swell in 2007, is a weekly comic strip
Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings that tells a story.Currently in the Western world, most comic strips are written and drawn by a comics artist or cartoonist, and many such strips are published on a recurring basis in newspapers and on the Internet....
 by Matt Groening
Matt Groening

Matthew Abram Groening is an United Statesn cartoonist, screenwriter and television producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell and the television series The Simpsons and Futurama....
. The strip features anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of uniquely human characteristics to non-human creatures and beings, natural and supernatural phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts....
 rabbits and a pair of gay lovers
Homosexuality

Homosexuality refers to human sexual behavior or same-sex attraction between people of the same sex or to homosexual orientation. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "having sexual and romantic attraction primarily or exclusively to members of one?s own sex"; "it also refers to an individual?s sense of personal and social identi...
. 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
Angst

Angst is a German language and Dutch language word for fear or anxiety. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of strife. The term Angst distinguishes itself from the word Furcht in that Furcht usually refers to a material threat , while Angst is usually a nondirectional emotion....
, alienation
Social alienation

In sociology and critical social theory, alienation refers to an individual's estrangement from traditional community and others in general. It is considered by many that the Atomism of modernity means that individuals have shallower relations with other people than they would normally....
, self-loathing, and fear of inevitable doom.

History

Life in Hell started in 1977 as a self-published
Self-publishing

Self-publishing is the publishing of books and other Mass media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers....
 comic book
Comic book

A comic book is a magazine or book of narrative artwork and dialog and descriptive prose. The style was introduced in 1934. Despite the term, comic books do not necessarily feature humorous subject-matter; in fact, it is often serious and action-oriented....
 Groening used to describe life in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles

Los ?ngeles is the Capital of the Biob?o Province, in the municipality of the same name, in Regions of Chile VIII , in the center-south of Chile....
 to his friends. Groening photocopied and distributed it in a small "punk
Punk subculture

The punk subculture is based around punk rock. It emerged from the larger rock music scene in the mid-to-late-1970s in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan....
" corner of the record store in which he worked, Licorice Pizza on Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California....
. Life in Hell debuted as a comic strip
Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings that tells a story.Currently in the Western world, most comic strips are written and drawn by a comics artist or cartoonist, and many such strips are published on a recurring basis in newspapers and on the Internet....
 in the avant-garde Wet magazine
Wet (magazine)

Wet was an avant-garde Los Angeles-based magazine that revolved around the idea of "gourmet bathing" and later evolved to "gourmet bathing and beyond." Its publisher and creator was Leonard Koren, an architecture school graduate....
 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
Underground culture

An underground culture is a subculture that exists under the radar of mainstream massmedia and popular culture. It can be associated to a counterculture or an alternative culture, such as the underground culture that emerged along the hippie movement in the late 1960s and 1970s....
, Life in Hell was picked up by the Los Angeles Reader
Los Angeles Reader

Los Angeles Reader was a weekly paper established in 1978 and distributed in Los Angeles, USA. It followed the format of the Chicago 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 strip was frequently a serial
Serial (literature)

The term "serial" refers to the intrinsic property of a succession — namely, its sequence. In literature, the term is used as a noun to refer to a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication....
, 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
Publishing

Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information – the activity of making information available for public view....
 "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
Print syndication

Print syndication is a form of syndication in which news articles, column , or comic strips are made available to newspapers, magazines, and websites....
 and merchandising
Merchandising

Merchandising refers to the methods, practices and operations conducted to promote and sustain certain categories of commerce activity. The term is understood to have different specific meanings depending on the context....
 for Groening’s projects.

Life in Hell reached the attention of Hollywood producer
Executive producer

The title of executive producer , or executive in charge of production, typically describes a film producer, television producer, radio producer, record producer, or similar Stakeholder who doesn't participate in the technical operations of the production process, but who is still responsible for the success of a project....
 James L. Brooks
James L. Brooks

James L. Brooks is an United States Film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is known for producing television programs such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Simpsons , Rhoda and Taxi ....
, who received one strip — "The Los Angeles Way of Death" from 1982 — as a gift from fellow producer Polly Platt. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of developing a series of short animated
Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of Motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways....
 skit
Skit

Skit may refer to:*Sketch comedy*Hip hop skit*Puppet skitSee also *Skete...
s, called "bumpers", for The Tracey Ullman Show
The Tracey Ullman Show

The Tracey Ullman Show was a weekly United States television variety show, hosted by British comedian and onetime Pop music singer Tracey Ullman....
. Originally, Brooks had wanted Groening to adapt his Life in Hell characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights to his characters
Fictional character

A character is any person, persona, identity, or entity that exists in a The arts. The process of conveying information about characters in fiction is called characterisation....
, Groening instead created an entirely new batch of characters, the Simpsons
Simpson family

The Simpson family is a family of fictional characters featured in the List of animated television series The Simpsons. The Simpson nuclear family consists of the married couple Homer Simpson and Marge Simpson and their three children Bart Simpson, Lisa Simpson and Maggie Simpson....
.

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
Autobiography

An autobiography is a biography written by its subject . The term was first used by the poet Robert Southey in 1809 in the English language Periodical publication Quarterly Review, but the form goes back to antiquity....
 strips, perhaps because Groening was influenced by this burgeoning trend in alternative comics
Alternative comics

Alternative comics is term by which is defined a range of American comics which have appeared since about 1980, in the wake of the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s....
.

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
Profanity

The original meaning of the adjective profane referred to items not belonging to the church, e.g. "The fort is the oldest profane building in the town, but the local monastery is older, and is the oldest sacred building," or "besides designing churches, he also designed many profane buildings"....
" as a concession to daily papers that carry the strip.

On December 7, 1998 Groening registered the domain 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."

Though Groening had previously stated that he would never give up the comic strip, he recently admitted that due to troubling times for print newspapers and constant involvement with 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.


  • 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
    Futurama

    Futurama is an Animated cartoon United States Situation comedy created by Matt Groening, and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company....
     episode Xmas Story
    Xmas Story

    "Xmas Story" is the fourth episode in the second production season of Futurama. It originally aired as the eighth episode in the second broadcast season in North America on December 19, 1999....
    , 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
    Fez (clothing)

    The fez , or Tarboosh ?????, not to be confused with North African Checheya, is a red felt hat in the shape of a truncated cone....
     and Charlie Brown
    Charlie Brown

    Charles "Charlie" Brown is the main character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.Charlie Brown and his creator have a common connection in that they are both the sons of barbers, but whereas Schulz's work is described as the "most shining example of the American success story", Charlie Brown is an example of "the great Amer...
    -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
    Homer's Triple Bypass

    "Homer's Triple Bypass" is episode eleven from The Simpsons The Simpsons . It originally aired in the United States on December 17, 1992....
    ", 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. Her dress is a little like Marge Simpson's dress.


  • Bart Simpson
    Bart Simpson

    Bartholomew "Bart" JoJo Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family....
    , 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
    Dog

    The dog is a domesticated subspecies of the Gray Wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties....
     boss at his job. His name precedes those of the Simpsons
    Simpson family

    The Simpson family is a family of fictional characters featured in the List of animated television series The Simpsons. The Simpson nuclear family consists of the married couple Homer Simpson and Marge Simpson and their three children Bart Simpson, Lisa Simpson and Maggie Simpson....
    .


  • Gooey, Screwy, and Ratatouille are Akbar and/or Jeff's triplet nephews. The names are an obvious spoof of the Disney
    The Walt Disney Company

    The Walt Disney Company is the largest media and entertainment corporation in the world. Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O....
     characters Huey, Dewey and Louie
    Huey, Dewey and Louie

    Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck are a trio of ducks who appear in animated cartoons and comic books published by the Walt Disney Company....
     (Donald Duck
    Donald Duck

    Donald Duck is a cartoon fictional character from The Walt Disney Company. Donald is a white anthropomorphism duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet....
    '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.
  • 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, over 10 books have been released.

In addition to the books, the comic also spawned T-shirt
T-shirt

A T-shirt is a shirt which is pulled on over the head to cover most of a person's torso. A T-shirt is usually buttonless, collarless, and pocketless, with a round neck and short sleeves....
s, greeting cards, posters, coffee mugs, and a short-lived newsletter
Newsletter

A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one main topic that is of interest to its subscribers. Newspapers and pamphlets are types of newsletters....
 called the "Life in Hell Times." There is also an annual calendar.

In the late 1980s, Groening drew several print advertisements for Apple Computer
Apple Computer

Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer Inc., is an United States multinational corporation which designs and manufactures consumer electronics and software products....
 in the form of Life in Hell comic strips.

There was a 2002 calendar produced, made of previous Life in Hell cartoons. (ISBN 0-7631-4480-0)

At the 2005 Comic-Con
Comic-Con International

Comic-Con International: San Diego, commonly known as Comic-Con or the San Diego Comic-Con, is an annual multigenre fan convention founded as the Golden State Comic Book Convention and later the San Diego Comic Book Convention in 1970 by Shel Dorf and a group of San Diegans....
 in San Diego, a series of deluxe Life in Hell vinyl figurines manufactured by CritterBox Toys was announced.

Books

Life
  • 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 0061340375)


External links