They are perhaps the world's first cartooning dynasty. Robert Crumb, the famous ink-stained artist, launched the underground comics movement of the '60s and gained mainstream notoriety with the release of the documentary Crumb (1994).
His wife, Aline Kominsky Crumb, came up in the same scene and has just recently released Need More Love: A Graphic Memoir (MQ Publications).
And together they have a daughter named Sophie Crumb, who's work may even surpass her parents'.
Aline was in New York City promoting her new book, with Crumb, who interviewed her on Valentine's Day. She woke up at the ungodly hour of 8:45 in the morning to speak with Mr. Skin. She speaks graphically about living in an open marriage, being infested with genital crabs thanks to hypocritical feminist cartoonists, and which HBO series has the most realistic and erotic sex.
Robert and I did a little slapstick. He jumped up on me on the stage. We did our little George and Gracie bit.
I only sold 800 copies of Love That Bunch, which is a book that came out in 1990. My work has always been in the comics ghetto, and it's niche in that world. Now that graphic novels are popular it's reaching a wider audience, and within that wider audience there are people who appreciate my work. That's good.
Nobody's perfect, so I'm willing to put up with his lack of monogamy just to be able to be with him. We get along so well. We like each other so much. Then I began to realize that I could have my cake and eat it. I was very young when I started living with him--I was twenty-three--and I was able to continue to develop, explore my own life without troubling my primary relationship. That ended up being very beneficial to me in the long run.
It wasn't like I planned it, but the monogamy model, as the only way to live, is a modern invention. People have always lived in weird tribal, extended-family situations throughout history. Not everybody's needs are met in monogamy, as is proven by statistics.
Also Diane Noomin, who's married to [Zippy the Pinhead cartoonist] Bill Griffith, was in that group. But we were very different in the sense, not that we weren't feminists, but we openly admitted that we liked sex; we liked men. We wanted to be bad girls, control our destinies. We weren't any kind of sell-outs, as they called us, or Uncle Toms. But we dressed sexy, admitted we liked sex, wanted to have a wild time.
We were not feminists that hated men, and that seemed to be a riff in the group. As soon as we both got involved with male cartoonists, Trina Robbins and her minions really started to turn against us. I got a letter finally saying, "We reject this story based on the fact that your feminist consciousness has not significantly evolved since your last story."
In my book I tell the dirty details of what was really going on. The editor was actually sleeping with Robert at the time and gave me crabs. That's the ultimate hypocrisy of that group. Diane and I broke off and started Twisted Sisters, a bad-girl comic, and then a lot of interesting women started to then come out of the woodwork. We had Phoebe Gloeckner, Carol Tyler, Krystine Kryttre, and Dori Seda, who were much more in the spirit of bad-girl comic art. Eventually you have contemporary female artists now who are certainly in that spirit--honest, self-deprecating, have humor about themselves. As a result of that there's no longer a women's comics ghetto. You don't say a woman cartoon artist, you just see a graphic novelist. It's not an issue at all anymore.
Those feminist cartoonists also claimed that the men were trying to keep the women out of the comics. It wasn't true at all. The men were completely encouraging. Artists like Spain Rodriguez, Kim Deitch, Justin Green, Robert--they were totally encouraging to us.
We were very primitive, un-evolved cartoonists. As artists we hadn't done very much. A lot of the men had been drawing for a lot longer, so I think we were behind just in the sense that we hadn't done as much work. But as the work developed we were totally accepted.
Zap comics was a closed club, but it was closed to other male artists as well. That was their baby and they never let anyone else in, which Robert disagreed with, actually. That was kind of like a boys' club, but it wasn't to keep women out, it was to keep other artists out. There was a macho element in that group of men, you know like S. Clay Wilson and Robert Williams are kind of macho guys, but they never did anything to stop us from drawing comics. They didn't particularly encourage us, but they weren't discouraging. The other men were very encouraging, and the male publishers published our work. If you look at it, it's really primitive. It's amazing that anyone published it.
Robert's working on Genesis; it's unbelievable, and he has nudity in that. It's lurid. He's using the text literally. It's shocking and amazing and beautiful. I think it's the major work of his life--for those nudity fans that'll be a good thing.
His wife, Aline Kominsky Crumb, came up in the same scene and has just recently released Need More Love: A Graphic Memoir (MQ Publications).
And together they have a daughter named Sophie Crumb, who's work may even surpass her parents'.
Aline was in New York City promoting her new book, with Crumb, who interviewed her on Valentine's Day. She woke up at the ungodly hour of 8:45 in the morning to speak with Mr. Skin. She speaks graphically about living in an open marriage, being infested with genital crabs thanks to hypocritical feminist cartoonists, and which HBO series has the most realistic and erotic sex.
What was it like being interviewed by your husband at the New York Public Library?
It was really fun, but God made it a challenge. It was the worst snowstorm of the year. The most horrible weather I'd ever seen. I thought, of course in my typical negative way, no one is going to come. In fact people were waiting in line. It was packed. I was really happy.Robert and I did a little slapstick. He jumped up on me on the stage. We did our little George and Gracie bit.
You carried him around on your back like in the cartoons?
Yeah, I did. We wanted to give the people who came out their money's worth. I was completely relaxed and thoroughly enjoyed myself, which surprised me. I thought I might be nervous.Your book has just been published, you're in the New Yorker, you had an art opening at Adam Baumgold Gallery, do you feel like the toast of the town?
It's my hometown and I kind of feel like the belle of the ball. Robert and I did a cover for Heeb magazine; we did a New Yorker strip at the same time. Time Out New York gave my book a five-star review, which is really rare. My book has been well received and seems to be selling well. Need More Love is not the title for nothing.I only sold 800 copies of Love That Bunch, which is a book that came out in 1990. My work has always been in the comics ghetto, and it's niche in that world. Now that graphic novels are popular it's reaching a wider audience, and within that wider audience there are people who appreciate my work. That's good.
Comics are not looked down upon anymore?
Absolutely. Robert's work is collected by museums now. Graphic novels have a separate section in Barnes Noble, and they're serious--they're not superhero comics for eighteen-year-old boys. I feel I have access to the people I've been trying to speak to over the last forty years.How did the book come about?
Robert did the R. Crumb Handbook a couple of years ago, which was an overview of his whole career, and the publisher wanted me to do something that was a retrospective of my life. I approached it in my own way. I have so much documentation from all these periods of my life. I decided to do a visually documented autobiography. I started by writing the text, and I illustrated each period with comics, plus paintings that refer to those periods, with photos, so I got an impressionistic graphic memoir, which I don't think has ever been done. But it felt like the natural way for me to do it.What's the sexiest tidbit you reveal in the book?
I talk about the wild goings-on in the late '60s, early '70s when I first met Robert. All the different partners we had, and who gave us the crabs for example. I also talk about my multiple husbands and our non-monogamous relationship. I talk pretty openly about living in a bohemian, non-conventional way since the very beginning. I don't hold anything back. I don't give specific sex acts, but short of that I tell everything.How do you make an open marriage work?
I don't know why it works, and I wouldn't recommend it, but I can just say in our situation everybody's needs seem to be met. We're not a jealous group. For some reason it's worked out with the particular personalities involved. Maybe because we're old and we've been through the '60s and we've been through all this crazy stuff it works. And when I was first with Robert it was very difficult for me, so I tried to leave him, but I realized he was the only person I can stand to live with.Nobody's perfect, so I'm willing to put up with his lack of monogamy just to be able to be with him. We get along so well. We like each other so much. Then I began to realize that I could have my cake and eat it. I was very young when I started living with him--I was twenty-three--and I was able to continue to develop, explore my own life without troubling my primary relationship. That ended up being very beneficial to me in the long run.
It wasn't like I planned it, but the monogamy model, as the only way to live, is a modern invention. People have always lived in weird tribal, extended-family situations throughout history. Not everybody's needs are met in monogamy, as is proven by statistics.
Fifty-percent divorce rate.
Yeah, and less than half of Americans live in couple relationships; people live in other kinds of situations--roommates, single parents--that work for whatever reason. I think you have to experiment to find what makes it work on everyone's emotional-need level.Both your comics and Crumb's are graphically autobiographical. Is your husband really as perverted as he draws himself?
He draws his sexual fantasies and obsessions. How much he acts out on that I won't tell you. But those obsessions are real. Like many fetishists, their fetishes are real. How much they act it out is another thing. The fact that he draws it has gotten it out of his system to a certain extent--the weirdest parts of it. I think he gets off on those crazy things he's done in his drawings. Obviously he doesn't want to behead women. But his sadistic urges are quite satisfied with his drawings. It's a lot milder in real life. And as you grow older those things die down. He's been meditating for years now, and he's a mellower, more Mr. Natural-like character than a Snoid-like character in old age.Is exposing those fantasies in public a fetish unto itself?
I think it's creatively satisfying. It helps deal with those obsessions in some way, letting it out. Having the public accept it to a certain degree, except for certain feminists and other people that go crazy when they see it. But, in general, having a successful career by artistically exposing your obsessions is satisfying.Didn't you get in trouble with other female underground cartoonists because they didn't believe you towed the feminist party line?
Oy! The Wimmen's Comix Collective, from the very beginning they didn't approve because I drew myself ugly and they all drew themselves as beautiful superheroes riding on white stallions--all that kind of crap--very childlike, very simplistic kind of work, in my opinion. I did an ugly, neurotic, self-doubting monster. In fact, my early drawings were much uglier than my later drawings because I hated myself much more.Also Diane Noomin, who's married to [Zippy the Pinhead cartoonist] Bill Griffith, was in that group. But we were very different in the sense, not that we weren't feminists, but we openly admitted that we liked sex; we liked men. We wanted to be bad girls, control our destinies. We weren't any kind of sell-outs, as they called us, or Uncle Toms. But we dressed sexy, admitted we liked sex, wanted to have a wild time.
We were not feminists that hated men, and that seemed to be a riff in the group. As soon as we both got involved with male cartoonists, Trina Robbins and her minions really started to turn against us. I got a letter finally saying, "We reject this story based on the fact that your feminist consciousness has not significantly evolved since your last story."
In my book I tell the dirty details of what was really going on. The editor was actually sleeping with Robert at the time and gave me crabs. That's the ultimate hypocrisy of that group. Diane and I broke off and started Twisted Sisters, a bad-girl comic, and then a lot of interesting women started to then come out of the woodwork. We had Phoebe Gloeckner, Carol Tyler, Krystine Kryttre, and Dori Seda, who were much more in the spirit of bad-girl comic art. Eventually you have contemporary female artists now who are certainly in that spirit--honest, self-deprecating, have humor about themselves. As a result of that there's no longer a women's comics ghetto. You don't say a woman cartoon artist, you just see a graphic novelist. It's not an issue at all anymore.
Those feminist cartoonists also claimed that the men were trying to keep the women out of the comics. It wasn't true at all. The men were completely encouraging. Artists like Spain Rodriguez, Kim Deitch, Justin Green, Robert--they were totally encouraging to us.
We were very primitive, un-evolved cartoonists. As artists we hadn't done very much. A lot of the men had been drawing for a lot longer, so I think we were behind just in the sense that we hadn't done as much work. But as the work developed we were totally accepted.
Zap comics was a closed club, but it was closed to other male artists as well. That was their baby and they never let anyone else in, which Robert disagreed with, actually. That was kind of like a boys' club, but it wasn't to keep women out, it was to keep other artists out. There was a macho element in that group of men, you know like S. Clay Wilson and Robert Williams are kind of macho guys, but they never did anything to stop us from drawing comics. They didn't particularly encourage us, but they weren't discouraging. The other men were very encouraging, and the male publishers published our work. If you look at it, it's really primitive. It's amazing that anyone published it.
When Crumb began editing Weirdo he was welcoming to all kinds of new cartoonists. You participated in some fumettis, but have you ever appeared naked in any of those?
No, but I was pregnant and had my face squashed in a door.I guess that's somebody's fetish.
And then we had women dressed as natives wearing skimpy bikini-type outfits. I think Dori Seda did this sexy one where she was in underwear and garters.Never crossed the line into skin?
No. We had little girls with white underpants sticking out of schoolgirl uniforms. That was [Crumb director] Terry Zwigoff's fantasy, so he directed that one. We had girls falling and showing their undies. Nudity is not particularly Robert's fantasy at all. He likes women clothed in a specific way.He wouldn't be a frequent visitor to our site, then?
No. If you had tight miniskirts and boots he might. To each his own.Well, there's some of that in the flesh buffet Mr. Skin serves up. Do you recall the first time you saw a nude scene in a mainstream movie?
I don't remember. I think it's because it's not my erotic fantasy either. Recently I got an HBO series and I was amazed at how sexy it was. That was Rome (Picture: 1 - 2). Someone sent me that. I don't know if I liked it, but I was surprised by how the sex was portrayed, how realistic it was, and I thought it was very erotic.So what's next?
I'm going to do another book with W.W. Norton. It's going to be a lot of new comics, some obscure older comics that have only been seen by two people, and I'm going to do it all in color. I found that in my book the color makes my work more readable. My work's so detailed it's very hard to read. It'll probably be coming out in 2009.Robert's working on Genesis; it's unbelievable, and he has nudity in that. It's lurid. He's using the text literally. It's shocking and amazing and beautiful. I think it's the major work of his life--for those nudity fans that'll be a good thing.
