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. Image:Big Book of Hell.gif Groening started the comic strip in 1977 by photocopying 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 to use it to publish Life in Hell online; however, the website has remained in its "under construction" state since then.

Life in Hell was frequently a serial discussing various topics, e.g. Part 1 of Love is Hell. As television began to place more demands on his time, however, Groening came to almost exclusively feature 1-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 the burgeoning alternative comics trend of autobio.

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.

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Recurring characters

Binky is a bitter, depressed, alienated, and thus "normal", rabbit and star of the cartoon. He usually embodies dread.

Sheba is Binky's estranged girlfriend.

Hulga is Binky's one-night stand; she says: "What's fer breakfast?" (sic)

Bongo is Binky's illegitimate son by Hulga. He has one ear.

Snarla is Bongo's classmate/love interest. She is a cat.

Akbar & Jeff are described in various strips as "brothers or gay lovers; possibly both." 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.

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).

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