The professor is back and class is now in session!  From the moment you lay eyes on this anti-professorial text book disguised as a student's composition book (which, of course, it also is; as Lynda Barry is nothing if not a life-long learner) you know you are going to be in for a treat.  You know this book is going to be different.  You know that you will gradually realize that you don't know. At the outset, Barry (self-designated as Professor Long-Title) states that Syllabus is, "a book of notes, drawings, and syllabi I kept during my first three years of teaching in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  The chronology is rough and mixed up in places but all kept by hand on pages of either legal pads or in standard black and white marbled composition notebooks."  Syllabus asks:  "What is an image?"  But Lynda Barry knows that no book can answer this question by itself, that it is up to the reader, and so she guides us through "the unthinkable mind" in order to discover "what it is" and so be able to "write what you see" and ultimately be at one with "making comics."  Not only will you see her lessons and observations, but also a judicious and seamlessly integrated selection of students' work and turned-in assignments. (check out these preview shots to rev up your anticipation another notch)   This facsimile is sure to inspire many an actual composition-book filling and what could be better than that?  And, as a supplement to her Syllabus, you might want to make a visit to Lynda Barry's Tumblr page, The Near Sighted Monkey, where, when class is in session (and even when it's not), you'll get the chance to learn along with Lynda as well as occasionally get a look at what her students are up to.