Twisted Sisters was the first "breakaway project" by former contributors to the ground-breaking all-female comix collective Wimmen's Comix.
Publication history
Background
In 1975, Wimmen's Comix contributors Kominsky and Noomin left that collective due to internal conflicts that were both aesthetic and political.[1] Kominsky-Crumb later stated that a large part of her break with the Wimmen's Comix group was over feminism-related issues, and particularly over her romantic relationship with Robert Crumb, whom Wimmen's Comix mainstay Trina Robbins particularly disliked.[2]
Twisted Sisters one-shot
Kominsky and Noomin put together a 36-page one-shot issue of Twisted Sisters, published in June 1976 by Last Gasp, which featured their own humorous and "self-deprecating"[3] stories and art. Noomin's stories featured her character DiDi Glitz while Kominsky's featured her fictional analog The Bunch.
Kominsky-Crumb editorial run on Weirdo
A decade later, the title "Twisted Sisters" was informally revived when Kominsky-Crumb took over the editing reins of Weirdo,[4] the comics anthology started by her husband R. Crumb.[5] Kominsky-Crumb and Noomin's own comics work appeared frequently in the pages of Weirdo during this period, as well as the work of female contributors Carol Lay, Penny Van Horn, Phoebe Gloeckner, Krystine Kryttre, Julie Doucet, Leslie Sternbergh [ca], Carel Moiseiwitsch, Dori Seda, and Carol Tyler.[6]
In 1991, Noomin edited and put together Twisted Sisters: A Collection of Bad Girl Art, a 260-page trade paperback anthology published by Viking Penguin, featuring the work of herself, Kominsky-Crumb, and 13 other female cartoonists.[7] All the work in the collection had been previously published, most of it in Weirdo and Wimmen's Comix.[3]
Kitchen Sink series
The success of that book led to Kitchen Sink Press publishing a four-issue Twisted Sisters Comixlimited series in 1994, also edited by Noomin, with each issue featuring 44 pages of new comics by a number of female contributors.[8] The limited series was subsequently collected in 1995 as Twisted Sisters, vol. 2: Drawing the Line.[9]
An exhibition of artists' work, also called "Twisted Sisters — Drawing the Line", was held from January 19–February 18, 1996, at White Columns in New York City.[10]
Twisted Sisters, vol. 2: Drawing the Line (Kitchen Sink Press, 1995) — collecting the Kitchen Sink limited series
Accolades
Twisted Sisters: A Collection of Bad Girl Art was nominated for the 1992 Eisner Award for Best Anthology.[11] The Twisted Sisters limited series was nominated for the 1995 Eisner Award for Best Anthology.[12]
Further reading
Juno, Andrea, ed. Dangerous Drawings (New York: Juno Books, 1997).
Robbins, Trina. From Girls to Grrrlz: a history of [female] comics from teens to zines (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1999).
References
Notes
^Williams, Paul. The Rise of the American Comics Artist: Creators and Contexts (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2010), p. 139.
^Kominsky-Crumb, Aline. (2007). Need More Love. New York: MQ Publications. ISBN1-84601-133-7.
^ abNoomin, Diane. "Wimmen's and Comix", a transcript of Noomin's presentation at the 2003 UF Comics Conference. Accessed July 26, 2016.
^"Weirdo's New Editor: Aline Crumb", The Comics Journal #111 (Sept. 1986), p. 20.
