I was creeped out but enchanted disturbed but fascinated. We live in a world now with no filters, no boundaries, but this wasn’t the case in the seventies. Again, I was completely awestruck by how raw, unfiltered, and real Aline’s comics were. The next time I came across Aline was the original out of print edition of the book D+Q would eventually reprint, Love That Bunch, which I found in New York City. And of course, the one and only, Aline Kominsky-Crumb. In this book, I encountered D+Q cartoonists such as Julie Doucet, Debbie Drechsler, and Mary Fleener, as well as Carol Lay, and other female cartoonists. I just remember being at the Tower Records, and seeing the self-portraits of female cartoonists and wanting to read it. Its historical context, its contemporary context at the time, and the influence it would eventually wield. I don’t know if while reading it, I really understood its importance in the way that I do now. This paperback collection unwittingly set me on the path to Drawn & Quarterly ten years later, and to become the publisher twenty years later. The collection was edited by her friend Diane, and it’s original incarnation was a follow-up of sorts to Aline and Diane’s original iconic series of the same name from 1976 that ran for two decades. I didn’t expect to pick it up again so soon. A book that I just revisited with the recent death of Aline’s friend, fellow cartoonist and co-conspirator Diane Noomin. A book I have carried from apartment to apartment, from the US to Canada, that I have opened so many times it has torn in two. As an adult living in New York City’s East Village, while going to university in the early-90s, I bought the iconic Twisted Sisters: a Collection of Bad Girl Art anthology. So I won’t bore/horrify you with the details of which comics I read growing up, I will just start with what I feel is the first pivotal comic book I acquired and consumed. This may seem unrelated, but as someone in comics, I get asked one question over and over again: did you read comics growing up and what comics did you read? And yes, I did, of course, but not in that maniacal, obsessive way that makes everyone in comics feel not worthy when they haven’t read the complete canon of comics. What follows is a newly edited version of my introduction for Aline Kominsky-Crumb’s book launches for our 2018 reprint of Love That Bunch… To know Aline is to be friends with the most vivacious of people a woman generous with her love and time an indefatigable supporter of art, especially for her people-fellow cartoonists. Today I learned the sad news that the lovely, ever generous, and formative cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb died at the age of 74.
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