Drawn Together: The Collected Works of R. and A. Crumb

by R. Crumb, A. Crumb

Overview

Rumored for years, Drawn Together finally charts the daily exploits and erotic craziness of this “First Couple” of comics.

Who could have imagined that in 1972, when Aline Kominsky, a Long Island escapee and bodaciously talented artist, broke her foot one rainy fall day, it would result in the most unique collaboration in comics history? Laid up in her house, she was persuaded by R. Crumb, her nerdy, neurotic boyfriend, to pass the time drawing together a “two-man” comic. The result is a jaw-dropping yet tender account, not only of the joys and challenges of a legendary marriage but also of the obstacles faced by struggling female artists. In Drawn Together, our foremost male-female cartooning couple recall their success at shocking America with Weirdo Magazine, the life-altering birth of their precocious daughter Sophie, and their astonishing move to the safe haven of France. With an irresistible introduction and a striking four-color section, Drawn Together becomes a graphic cause-célèbre and a must-have for any comics devotee.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780871404299
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	10/08/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 11.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Born in Philadelphia, Robert Crumb is one of America’s most celebrated artists. Thrust reluctantly into fame as a defining voice of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture with comic strips like Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, and Keep on Truckin’, then again in the 1990s with the acclaimed documentary Crumb and more recently the 2025 biography Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life, he continues to push himself and his chosen medium from his home in the south of France.

Aline Crumb is an American underground comics artist and the author of Need More Love: A Graphic Memoir. She lives in southern France.

Editorial Reviews

"Starred review. If his drawing is wonderfully detailed, volumetric, and fluid—the justly most famous and admired comics style of our time—hers is flat, messy, childishly exuberant, an avatar of the art brut manners of such of her peers as Linda Barry, Roz Chast, and Nicole Hollander. That contrast between them becomes yet more grist for their endless, self-conscious, ludicrously frank (often literally unbuttoned; this is adult comics, folks) yattering on sex, art, parenthood, guilt, fashion, collecting, shopping mania, the Jews and the goys, France and the French, him being more famous than her, blah blah blah. And gloriosky! It gets funnier as the years pile up. The last long story here, “A Couple a’ Nasty, Raunchy Old Things,” is as hilarious as the best routines of George and Gracie, the Bickersons, and The Honeymooners."

Booklist

"Drawn Together brims with life… one can’t help but be charmed by the Crumbs…. A wonderful creation… offers much more than even its considerable bulk suggests."

QUIETUS

"[One] of the 50 sublime coffee table books for the true sophisticate."

Flavorwire

A scrapbook from the first family of American cartooning, containing collaborative strips that date back to the mid-1970s. The title serves a dual purpose, underscoring the claim, made throughout the book, that the authors are "The World's Only Cartooning Couple," as the two-headed cover proclaims, but also indicating the qualities that drew them together and keep them together. In a flyer for the aptly named Dirty Laundry Comics, Robert Crumb dubs them "the John and Yoko of Underground Comics!!" There are some parallels. In both cases, he had a wider following, and some fans have suggested (as these panels admit) that she was horning in, co-opting his work by capitalizing on his renown. In both cases, he proved to be his wife's strongest defender, suggesting that, if anything, she is carrying him. "Aline, I can't do this without you," he writes in one of the four-panel "The Crumb Family" strips (changes of pace from the longer, more elaborate narratives that dominate). "If I tell stories about my life it just comes out grim & sad." Not only does her presence provide comic relief, but the two of them present her as the stronger, both physically and emotionally. And then there's the sex (and there's plenty of it). "I go where the butt goes," he reflects while she beams, "So nice you're actually moving to a remote village in a foreign country just to satisfy an impulsive whim of mine!!" Generally, each of them draws themselves, though the panels make note of occasional reversals. The collection documents the changes in their lives as they've grown older, had a daughter (now a published cartoonist herself), moved to the south of France, and received more attention than they'd wanted through a couple of films (a documentary on the Crumb family and the adaptation of American Splendor, the acclaimed bio-pic of friend and collaborator Harvey Pekar). From the bathroom to the bedroom, they respond to the question of just how open and honest a marital comic can be. Not the most ambitious Crumb work, but there's a lot of love here.

Kirkus Reviews