Indisputably the Mother-Goddess of introspective, disturbingly honest autobiographical comics, Aline Kominsky-Crumb has been venting her tortured, artistic spleen in the undergrounds (with occasional help from husband R. Crumb) for decades now. This comprehensive volume is Aline (a.k.a. The Bunch) at her most irresistibly neurotic, from her unwilling backseat deflowering to a lonely 40th birthday in Paris. As the cover says, "It's cheaper than therapy" — and more entertaining.
"[Aline Kominsky-Crumb's] exquisite, ratty scrawlings are pure autobiography, and ambivalently revealing enough to give the unprepared reader pause." – The Village Voice Literary Supplement
"[Kominsky-Crumb] chronicles her peripatetic life from 1950s Long Island childhood to San Francisco hippie days to her unconventional marriage in an unpretty, messy style and with self-lacerating candor." – Booklist, "Core Collection: Graphic Women"
"To me, Aline is one of the most important figures in comics, which isn’t to say that she’s one of the most well-known. She’s not. But her comics have inspired a legion of cartoonists working in comics autobiography: specifically women cartoonists, because Aline published the first ever autobiographical comic from a woman’s point of view." – Hillary Chute
|