December 2, 2022

"[S]he arrived [in San Francisco] in the early 1970s and joined a feminist art collective. The group produced Wimmen’s Comix..."

"... one of the first feminist comics produced entirely by women, with topics that ranged from queer life to abortion to rape. The artist left the collective over disagreements about works that some found to be too unsparing (her alter ego character Bunch, for example, would sometimes pop pimples or masturbate or pick her butt). So in 1975, she founded a new women’s comic: Twisted Sisters. Together with her husband and collaborator Robert Crumb and their daughter Sophie, she moved to the south of France in 1990...."

From "Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Rebellious Cartoonist, Dead at 74" (NY Magazine).

This is from 2 years ago:

29 comments:

Joe Smith said...

I wonder who at the collective was in charge of making sandwiches?

Carol said...

Something wrong with making sandwiches, Joe?

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

A lot of funny stuff. You're like Yoko Ono, but talented. Boos from the crowd. Boomers and their taboo subjects.

I'm just surprised that Bob had an adventuresome love life. I remember a doc about him: he became less of a recluse about the time his brother became more of a recluse. He was hanging around Haight Ashbury, but he didn't look like a hippie. I think he kept looking like he did in high school: slightly shaggy hair, a kind of dress shirt and maybe even dress-y pants your mom might approve of, all a bit sloppy but nothing Third World or Eastern Religion. So the great Janis Joplin asked him: Bob, do you actually like girls? Oh yes Janis, I like girls very much. Well then you should change your style. Grow your hair and wear a dashiki like the other guys. Oh no Janis, I could never do that.

Lurker21 said...

Thank you for reminding me yet again why I loathe these people.

But De mortuis nil nisi bonum.

mikee said...

The South of France is a nice place to write comics. I'm glad their family got to live there. Much nicer than a SF feminist collective, where butt spicking in one's artworks is disapproved by "some". How exactly was the disapproval of the butt picking communicated and was it censored via some enforcement mechanism among the collective? Or was the butt picking merely disapproved by "some" staid feminists who just wanted to write about queer life, abortion and rape, which of course are much more important, and no doubt if handled correctly, much more palatable than butt picking?

madAsHell said...

I remember underground comix being an acquired taste......in Junior High School.

Joe Smith said...

'Something wrong with making sandwiches, Joe?'

I love sandwiches, and make them all the time.

So the answer to your question is a resounding 'No.'

Mattman26 said...

I'd defend to the death (well, maybe not all the way to death) their rights to create stuff like this, but I've always found it SO unappealing.

Tom T. said...

Coincidence: Diane Noomin, another cartoonist from the same era and the same aesthetic, just died as well. She was also the wife of Bill Griffith, the artist who does the comic strip Zippy the Pinhead.

Robert Cook said...

"Thank you for reminding me yet again why I loathe these people."

Envy?

Tom T. said...

I could never get into this kind of cartooning style. It's deliberately ugly, and I know it's meant to be rebellious, but it's so steeped in self-loathing.

It may be a reflection of changing society too; in a world where we can see homeless people masturbating and picking their butt outside our workplaces, it just doesn't seem like a radical statement anymore.

Narr said...

I guess the chances were less that he'd meet an actual Angelfood McSpade.

PM said...

SF. Where the 60's are in their 70s.

n.n said...

Men, women, and "our Posterity" are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Took the lates ZAP COMIX to the draft board induction with me. Instant Celebrity.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Today we're living goofier shit than Firesign Theatre.

retail lawyer said...

I was a fan. I read them in San Francisco and Berkeley, in real time. I knew of their move to France (Crumb traded some artwork for a chateau) and thought that was a smart move, as Crumb was too sensitive (in his own way) for the modern world of San Francisco. I hope he is OK.

YoungHegelian said...

The artist left the collective over disagreements about works that some found to be too unsparing (her alter ego character Bunch, for example, would sometimes pop pimples or masturbate or pick her butt)

Kominsky Crumb's fellow "radical" artists were offended by such weak tea as that?! I mean, by the "standards" of 60's/70's Underground comics, that's pretty mild.

I think those other women in the collective were much more bourgeois and ladylike in their tastes than they cared to admit.

Lurker21 said...

Envy?

No, incurable trashiness. But apparently you're into that.

I didn't want to have to say that. See the Latin. Speak no ill of the dead.

William said...

He punched way above his weight in looks and charm. He was definitely the more important artist, but maybe, as time goes by, she'll be Frida to his Diego Rivera....If you were handicapping the marriage, you would have given long odds on such a happy one. Idyllic even. South of France till death do us part. R. Crumb met his soulmate and lived happily ever after.

loudogblog said...

A long time ago, I was looking into alternative comics. There was a graphic artist named, Roberta Gregory, and she had written for Gay Comics and had created her own popular character called, Bitchy Bitch, which had become a separate comic line. I had ordered some comics from her and some swag and she almost came to my apartment to deliver them in person. (She actually wrote me about that.) But she didn't and just put the stuff in the mail. It was good quality work and I have always been disappointed that she chickened out on meeting me.

Bob Boyd said...

She joined a feminist art collective.

Cool. That's on my bucket list.

Kay said...

I don’t know a whole lot about her life, but I love her work. She will be missed.

Biff said...

As the old saying goes, "If you find a girl who pops her pimples and picks her butt in front of you, or at least talks about it or draws it, then you marry her."

Or something.

Robert Cook said...

"I was a fan. I read them in San Francisco and Berkeley, in real time. I knew of their move to France (Crumb traded some artwork for a chateau) and thought that was a smart move, as Crumb was too sensitive (in his own way) for the modern world of San Francisco. I hope he is OK."

It was actually Aline's idea (and desire) to move to France. I think Crumb's horror and disdain of modern life in the USA fueled much of his best work.

Quaestor said...

"Envy?"

Robert Cook's Secret Envied Person List

(1) Donald J. Trump
(2) Elon Musk
(3) Dan Bongino
(4) Quaestor
(5) Sarah Palin
(6) Jacob Chansley
(7) Ezra Lavant
(8) Carolyn D. Meadows
(9) Ian McCollum
(10)Ron Desantis


Will Cate said...

Her work, though not as well-known as Crumb's, was every bit as outré and provocative, with no obsession or perversion going unexamined. But she was also self-aware enough to remark, as she did in the above video, that nobody would even know who she was if she hadn't married "the famous guy." She had one occasional series called "Sex-Crazed Housewife" which used to give me a chuckle.

Robert Cook said...

"Robert Cook's Secret Envied Person List

(1) Donald J. Trump
(2) Elon Musk
(3) Dan Bongino
(4) Quaestor
(5) Sarah Palin
(6) Jacob Chansley
(7) Ezra Lavant
(8) Carolyn D. Meadows
(9) Ian McCollum
(10)Ron Desantis"


I don't have a clue who half of these people are. As for the other half, you misspelled "unvy."

Narr said...

Can I play?

Of Quaestor's list of ten, I recognize 1,2,3,4,5,7, and 10.