Home Sketch Stand-up/solo Improv Podcasts Interviews Movies TV Books Links Blog Circulation About |
Drawing Room The first couple of comics, Aline and R. Crumb, present a compilation of their most personal work By Michael Shashoua / Jester editor-in-chief; photo: Yerba Buena Arts Center
“Drawn Together: The Collected Works of R. and A. Crumb” turns dysfunction into warmth
as it chronicles the lives, marriage and personal mythology of its
authors, the revered underground comics artists.
The book, published in October by the Liveright division of Norton,
covers more than 30 years of the Crumbs’ work together, from 1974 to
2007, compiling individually released comic books and New Yorker
cartoons. The span of work begins with some lewd sexual drawings of
the couple together, which echo the much more rampantly sexual
content of R. Crumb’s earlier comics.
Eventually though, “Drawn Together” settles into the story of the
couple having a daughter, Sophie, and focuses more on acknowledging
each of their psychological eccentricities. As this unfolds, it
charms and amuses the reader. The comics are probably unique in that
Aline and R. share panels, with R. drawing himself in a scene and
Aline usually drawing herself – and each of them drawing specific
parts of a single panel. It is quite remarkable that they
collaborate in this way.
The comics in “Drawn Together” are quite text heavy, with captions
and dialogue balloons that take up big portions of the frames. The
Crumbs rely on all this text as much as their drawing styles to tell
their stories.
“Drawn Together” also documents the Crumbs’ self-imposed exile from
their San Francisco-area roots to France in the 1990s, and R.
Crumb’s misgivings about allowing filmmaker Terry Zwigoff to
document his life around that time. The attraction of “Drawn
Together” is the way it humanizes the Crumbs’ lives and makes them
relatable by giving readers or their fans a window into their
personal experiences.
|
|
Feedback? Email shashouamedia@gmail.com or michael.shashoua@jesterjournal.com
© 2005-2018 Michael Shashoua