History ComicStrip / LifeInHell

[[caption-width-right:350:Before there was the WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons, there was this.]]

-->-- '''Creator/{{Nietzsche}}''', Chapter I: What is Love? (And What Makes You Think You Deserve Some?)

-->-- '''Creator/Nietzsche''', Chapter I: What is Love? (And What Makes You Think You Deserve Some?)

-->-- '''[[Creator/FriedrichNietzsche Nietzsche]]''', Chapter I: What is Love? (And What Makes You Think You Deserve Some?)

* SphereEyes

Life in Hell started in 1977 as a [[UndergroundComics underground comic book]] Groening used to describe life in Los Angeles to his friends. Groening photocopied and distributed the comic book to friends and sold it for two dollars a copy at the "punk" corner of the record store in which he worked. ''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.

* AllAreEqualInDeath: Binky reassures his young son Bongo that "Death is the only thing that's fair. Everybody dies, and everybody stays dead the same amount of time: forever

In 1985, Creator/JamesLBrooks invited Groening to pitch a set of animated shorts to be used as filler for ''Series/TheTracyUllmanShow''. While Groening was originally planning on pitching an AnimatedAdaptation of ''Life in Hell'', he realised that would entail giving up full rights to the strip to FOX. As a result, while waiting in Brooks's lobby, he hurriedly sketched out a premise for a show about a crudely drawn DysfunctionalFamily. [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons You probably know the rest.]]

* UndergroundComics: Early on. It's since become more mainstream, but still isn't as well known as Groening's [[{{WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons}} other]] [[{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}} creations]]. Also, unlike ''ComicStrip/ZippyThePinhead'', ''Life In Hell'' was only syndicated to alternative weeklies and didn't appear as often.
** There were actually a few mainstream papers that ran it, but only a small number.

* OverlyLongGag. See Beat Panel above.

-->-- '''[[Creator/FriedrichNietzsche Nietzsche]]''', ''Chapter I: What is Love? (And What Makes You Think You Deserve Some?)''

->''Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.''
-->-- '''Life in Hell'''

''Life in Hell'', (later ''Life is Swell'' in 2007), was a weekly comic strip by Creator/MattGroening that ran from 1977 to 2012.

* DistaffCounterpart: Sheba is described as "basically, Binky in drag"

Matt Groening stated that he would continue the strip as long as possible, though his production was strained by work on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''. There were also accusations that success, fame, marriage and fatherhood had all conspired to dull his edge. Meanwhile, the steady decline of alternative newsweeklies post millenium meant that the market for "underground" strips was steadily diminishing. Finally, on June 20th, 2012 with distribution down to fewer than a dozen papers Groening announced that ''Life in Hell'' would end altogether.

** Even in this world, Los Angeles seems to be the worst part. One strip described is being "like hell, but with worse television."

* JerkassGod: One strip is narrated by some unseen, apparently immortal and omniscient being who consistently mocks the protagonist throughout his entire life, calling him a loser and saying that everything he does is meaningless ("You'll never make it..."). Eventually the protagonist dies of extreme old age in a nursing home, and the being smugly notes that it was right all along.
* LateToThePunchline: One comic strip has Bongo hearing his friend tell a dirty joke that gets everyone laughing.[[note]]The joke is as follows: "A woman buys a dog, and for some reason, she names is Freeshow. Then one day, she takes off all her clothes and gets into the shower, but the dog jumps out the window, and she jumps out of the shower to run after him, still naked, yelling "[[{{Pun}} Freeshow! Freeshow!]]"[[/note]] It isn't until he's gone home, sat on his stoop, eaten dinner, and laid down to go to sleep that he bursts out laughing, presumably "getting it."

* MyCountryTisOfTheeThatISting: The strip pokes a lot of satrical jabs at American society and politics.

* {{Twincest}}: [[http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/comics-and-graphic-novels/2012/06/20/life-hell-not-eternal-matt-groening-ends According]] to WordOfGod, "Here’s my standard reply: 'Akbar and Jeff are either brothers or lovers — or both. Whatever offends you most, that’s what they are.'... Yeah, of ''course'' they’re gay!". It's never made clear if they're related, though they have identical appearance.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Quite cynical, right down to the title.

-->--'''Life in Hell'''

* TheManyDeathsOfYou: [[http://www.futurama-area.de/LiH/OComics/40.gif The Los Angeles Way Of Death]]

* BadBoss: One comic depicts the many different kinds of bosses, in varying degrees of badness, ranging from {{Jerkass}} to violent psychopath, that one might have over the corse of their life.