Aline Kominsky-Crumb, "Need More Love: A Graphic Memoir" (2007).

Despite the relative obscurity that most art comix creators toil in, a large proportion of the literate United States has no doubt heard of R. Crumb. The cartoonist has become a sort of cultural icon, from his youthful days in the vanguard of the revolutionary 60's to his eventual embrace by the fine art world. His work has been featured in museum retrospectives and his life has been documented on film by noted director and personal friend Terry Zwigoff (Crumb, 1994). Even though such recognition has chased him to an expatriate existence in France, he remains one of the most important American social critics of our time. Virtually every corner of his psyche has been examined, but still there is a glaring gap in this analysis.

Throughout the last three-and-a-half decades, Robert Crumb has lived and worked with his current wife- Aline Ricky Goldsmith Kominsky-Crumb. This extraordinary woman has made her own significant contributions to comics, and has slowly built a modest following of fans and admirers. Perhaps the second cartoonist to portray herself in a series of autobiographical comix (after Justin Green), Kominsky-Crumb was first recognized for her work in San Francisco, when she joined with a collective of female artists who were putting out an anthology called Wimmen's Comix. As her relationship with her legendary partner developed, she became increasingly at odds with Trina Robbins, who brought a heavy strain of feminism into the the collective.

Kominsky-Crumb would eventually split off to initiate a collaboration with Diane Noomin, and thus the Twisted Sisters series was born. Through this publication, the pair would encourage a broader spectrum of possibilities and perspectives from women artists. Simultaneously the Crumbs put together and co-edited the tremendously influential Wierdo anthology- a project that (along with Art Spiegelman's Raw) carried the banner of "alt-comix" during the vacuous 1980's. The couple produced two other continuing works during this time- their daughter Sophie was born (and she continues the family tradition herself as a talented cartoonist), and they co-created an ongoing saga called Dirty Laundry, in which they play off each other to form an intriguing hybrid of their individual visions.

It's clear to the serious observer of comics history that Kominsky-Crumb would garner serious critical attention even without her association with her illustrious husband. Those who have consistently underrated her influence would do well to check out her 2007 graphic memoir, Need More Love. This nearly 400-page book chronicles her life in detail, incorporating comics, interviews, photos and illuminating self-commentary. Her Long Island-born Jewish obsessiveness, along with her self-deprecating humor, makes this a wonderful introduction to the phenomenon that is Aline Kominsky-Crumb. She is absolutely without shame, and details both the various strengths and embarrassing aspects of her own character.

One need not be a student of Kominsky-Crumb's interests (fashion, physical fitness, dolls, etc.) to enjoy this book. You don't even have to appreciate the raw aesthetic that she brings to her cartooning. If you are at all curious about the life of a trail-blazing artist during the tumultuous years of post WWII America, then you owe it to yourself to check this out. Even if you are merely another R. Crumb "camp follower", there is much information to be mined from Need More Love. Kominsky -Crumb no doubt owes some debt to her intimate association with genius, but the opposite must also be acknowledged. Either way the past fifty years in art comics would have been noticeably weaker without the contributions of this ebullient woman.

Who is Kim Deitch?

The other day I wrote a post about the 'fursuiters', and I mentioned a cartoonist who had provoked the ire of at least one of these strange creatures by publishing a cartoon panel that was thought to misrepresent this odd subculture. Over the years this same artist has earned praise for his large body of work by employing themes such as addiction, media distortion, and the concerns of the entertainment industry in the early 20th Century. While R. Crumb now builds his status as a legend by appearing in museum shows, Kim Deitch quietly continues to expand his own legacy by publishing masterful comics that continually fly under the mainstream radar. That's really a shame, because in a lot of ways Deitch represents an evolution in the work of the very first wave of underground comics in America.

Deitch was there at the inception of the arts comics form. A perusal of the influential anthologies and periodicals that he has appeared in is remarkable in its breadth- The East Village Other, Arcade, Heavy Metal, High Times, LA Weekly, Pictopia, Raw, Weirdo and Zero Zero. Show this list to any fanboy, and their eyes will glaze over in envy and admiration. Appearances in only half of those rags would be enough to establish one as a major figure in comics history. Still the 64-year-old creator refuses to rest upon his laurels. His adventures with cartoon cat "Waldo" (said to be a demonic reincarnation of Judas Iscariot) remain both vibrant and bizarre. Instead of repeating a generic body of sight gags, Deitch's work becomes more and more complex and profound.

I first became aware of Deitch through a collection of Waldo stories called The Boulevard of Broken Dreams (2002). This title featured a 1930's-era cartoonist named Teddy Mishkin, a man teetering on the edge of alcoholism and mental breakdown. Mishkin is struggling to produce the latest "Waldo the Cat" animation short for the studio where he is employed. Meanwhile the inimical feline is starting to take on a real existence in Mishkin's life. This is all played out against a back-story which examines how changing attitudes and tastes for animation affected the smaller studios that labored to produce idiosyncratic and personal work, while other larger companies consolidated their power and strengthened their hold on the public imagination.

While it certainly doesn't hurt for the reader to understand a bit about the history of cartooning and animation during the first half of the last century, there are plenty of seedy details and strangely surreal elements to keep everyone involved. Often Deitch employs non-linear narratives that loop around, seeming at once to diverge from the main arc, and then suddenly return to the starting point with an alternative perspective. There are also repeat characters that pop up in his different stories. My enjoyment of Kim Deitch continued with Alias the Cat! (2007), which reintroduced Waldo as the insidiously meddlesome provocateur that I had come to know and love. This time around the protagonist is a former Czech munitions magnate and silent film actor. The charms of Dietch's style are consistent and sustaining.

What I particularly appreciate about Deitch's work is the full immersion that he is able to elicit with his astonishingly complete attention to detail. As wildly idiosyncratic as Deitch's universe is, it is accessible and seems counterintuitively welcoming for the reader. His settings certainly predate the lives of his primary audience, but there is a lot of embedded commentary in Dietch's work. Art comic giant Art Speigelman has said that, "Kim Deitch has created a private world as fully realized in its own way as Faulkner's." That comparison may make skeptical critics blanch. But I think there's merit in the association- because while Deitch's work is inextricably grounded in a specific past, there are themes at its core that resonate wildly in the present.