Matt Groening before The Simpsons

Not too many people know, or bother to know, what Matt Groening was up to before The Simpsons. While media stats argue that The Simpsons, being America's longest running sit-com, is his greatest work, a true comic buff would never agree. As early as 1980, nine years before The Simpsons became a household phenomenon, Matt's cartoon 'Life in Hell' was syndicated by the Los Angeles Reader, and is still carried regularly in 250 weekly newspapers.

While it can be a wee bit hard to get your hands on US dailies in India, the good news is that all these cartoons can be found anthologized in a series of comic books including 'Work is Hell' (which fellow cartoonist Nicole Hollander hailed as the Kama Sutra of employment), 'School is Hell', 'Childhood is Hell', 'The Big Book of Hell', and 'The Huge Book of Hell'. Matt himself is so attached to the series, he said he would "never give up the comic strip. It's my foundation."

One of my friends recently lent me 'Childhood is Hell' and 'Work is Hell', and I can tell you that you can't pay too much for them. So, if you've got a friend or relative coming down from the US, you know exactly what to ask them for.