Life in Hell
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Life in Hell is a weekly comic strip by Matt Groening. The strip features anthropomorphic rabbits and gay lovers. Groening uses these characters to explore a wide range of topics about love, sex, work, and death. His drawings are full of not only fun, merriment, laughs, and frivolity, but also expressions of angst, alienation, self-loathing, and fear of inevitable doom.
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Groening started the comic strip in 1977 by xeroxing and distributing it in a small corner of the record store he was working in. By 1980 it had become so popular in the underground that it was picked up by the Los Angeles Reader and has only grown in popularity since then. Today it is syndicated in over 250 newspapers around the world.
Beginning in the mid 1980s, Life in Hell has been anthologized in dozens of books, including Work is Hell, Binky's Guide to Love, The Big Book of Hell and more. On December 7, 1998 Groening registered the domain mattgroening.com (http://www.mattgroening.com) to use it to publish Life in Hell online, however, the website has remained in its "under construction" state since then.
Life in Hell is regularly referenced in The Simpsons, primarily through Binky dolls owned by Maggie, Lisa & Bart.
In 1993, Groening created Bongo Comics, a company that publishes Simpsons related comics, named after Bongo, a character from the comic strip.
Recurring characters
Binky is a bitter, depressed, alienated, and thus "normal", rabbit and star of the cartoon.
Sheba is Binky's estranged girlfriend.
Hulga is Binky's girlfriend in a few comics; she says: "What's fer breakfast?" (sic)
Bongo is Binky's illegitimate son. He has one ear.
Akbar & Jeff are two big-nosed identical gay lovers. They 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.
Matt Groening appears in the strip as a bearded rabbit. He is also sometimes represented as Binky.
Will and Abe are Matt Groening's two sons, represented in rabbit form.
Gooey, Screwy, and Ratatouille are Akbar and Jeff's triplet nephews. The names are an obvious spoof of the Disney characters Huey, Dewey and Louie (Donald Duck's nephews).
Books
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Akbar & Jeff's Guide To Life
- Love is Hell (ISBN 0394744543)
- Work is Hell (ISBN 0394748646)
- School is Hell (ISBN 0394750918)
- Box Full of Hell (ISBN 0679721118)
- Childhood is Hell (ISBN 0679720553)
- Greetings from Hell (ISBN 0679726780)
- Akbar and Jeff's Guide to Life (ISBN 0679726802)
- The Big Book of Hell (ISBN 0679727590)
- With Love From Hell (ISBN 0060965835)
- How to Go to Hell (ISBN 0060968796)
- The Road to Hell (ISBN 0060969504)
- Bink's Guide to Love (ISBN 0060950781)
- Love is Hell: Special Ultra Jumbo 10th Anniversary Edition (ISBN 0679756655)
- The Huge Book of Hell (ISBN 0140263101)
External Fansites
- What The Hell | The Ultimate Life in Hell Fansite! (http://hell.capefeare.com)
- "Life In Hell" References On The Simpsons (http://www.snpp.com/guides/lifeinhell.html)
- Lots of "Life In Hell" comic strips (http://www.geocities.com/lifeinhellperson)
- The style of writing that Akbar/Jeff use, download the font (http://www.wobblymusic.com/groening/akbar.html)