When I was going to art school in the sixties it was all about abstract expressionism, which was totally unrelatable. I always kept notebooks, but I never thought about it as my art. I always drew funny drawings of the people around, and little social satires. I came from that narrative Jewish storytelling kind of humour – very critical and self-deprecating. My grandfather took me to see all these famous Jewish comedians when I was a kid, like Joey Bishop and Jackie Mason. On where her wild art and scathing humour come from: Aline Kominsky-Crumb spoke to The Globe about her life, her legacy, and the therapeutic value of her comics.

Readers familiar with one of the most influential cartoonists of our time – it’s hard to imagine comics such as Fun Home or Diary of a Teenage Girl without her, let alone the comedy of Lena Dunham or Broad City – may already know to cherish this work, but the book’s publication is also sure to captivate and inspire an entirely new generation. As Kominsky-Crumb dredges up hilarious, horrendous experiences from her girlhood growing up in 1950s Long Island, her coming-of-age in the hippie counterculture and her own attempts at raising a family in Reaganite California, she bears her soul, busts taboos and breaks new ground for women in comics, all at once. When Aline Kominsky-Crumb’s rough-hewn, torn-from-life comics were first collected in 1990, the cover insisted, “Read this book! It’s cheaper than therapy.” Now that Love That Bunch is being reissued as a deluxe hardcover edition with extensive additional content, the slogan holds even truer. Published by Drawn & Quarterly, 212 pages, $32.95.

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