Johanna Draper Carlson's recent posts (1), (2) regarding Trina Robbins' series of books that focus on the history of women cartoonists were a nice reminder of some essential texts for basically anyone interested in the history of American comics (of course, they have special appeal for feminist comics fans). In the late '90s, the Stanislaus County Library system thoughtfully included in their collection not only Robbins' books, but Twisted Sisters Vol. 2: Drawing the Line, the 1995 sequel to an anthology of comic shorts by an offshoot of the underground Wimmen's Comix Collective plus up-and-comers (at the time) such as Dame Darcy[1], edited by Diane Noomin and published by Kitchen Sink Press. Therefore, SCLS kindly provided me not only with a history of women comics creators, but then-contemporary bona-fide examples. Of the two Twisted Sister volumes, TS2 is more widely available: I picked up a remaindered (ever-so-slightly water-damaged) copy last summer at Half Price Books for $1.

The second volume is probably more accessible because it's superior to the first: Twisted Sisters: A Collection of Bad Girl Art, published in 1991 by Penguin. Although Volume One was a very necessary and welcome literary mainstream introduction to fantastically talented cartoonists such as Carol Lay, Phoebe Gloeckner, Julie Doucet, Dori Seda and Carol Tyler, and must have helped each (eventually…) to gain, deservedly, solo collections[2], it just doesn't hold up as well as Volume Two.[3] In TS1, while contributors tackle topics from abortion to having children, love affairs to breakups, car repair to shoe-shopping, slice-of-life, fantasy and science-fiction with media such as scratchboard and pen-and-ink, many of the pieces run about two to four pages long, and as such, come across as vignettes or anecdotes rather than full-fledged stories. TS1 has fewer contributors, but a larger selection of each cartoonist's work, which has the disadvantage of both dragging when one of the cartoonist's work appeals less to you and also to dilute the effect of an individual cartoonist's strongest piece by surrounding it with less effective efforts. (And it probably would have been difficult for 1991 readers to follow up on their preferred cartoonists' work, which must have been terribly frustrating.)

Still, I'm coming from the spoiled position of someone who has the standout cartoonists in TS1 solo collections available to her. As a milestone, sampler or even just a snapshot of a moment, TS1 does have a lot to offer. Many of the contributors are of the same generation, having come of age in the '60s, and this informs their work: romance-comic imagery and tropes are invoked; daughters are expected to become mothers and housewives, gender roles prove puzzling and ill fitting. The inclusiveness of the book allows for some fun, not-quite-ready-for-prime-time material: Gloeckner's "Magda Meets the Little Men in the Woods" is a little less poignant, and a lot more goofy, than a lot of her work and M.K. Brown's pleasantly surreal sensibility sharpens in the wordless one-pager "Marriage Mirage."

By 1995's Twisted Sisters 2: Drawing the Line, Noomin and the contributors had buffed up their chops in a big way: not only are most of the stories perfectly realized in and of themselves (Debbie Drechsler's "Sixteen," Tyler's "Migrant Mother," Kominsky-Crumb's "Codependent Ski Vacation," Gloeckner's "Minnie's 3rd Love" and one of my favorite comic shorts of all time, Lay's 12-pager in which a bitter woman mutated by toxic waste wins a "can you draw …" contest and becomes "God For a Day"), but many of the contributors seem to be hitting personal high-water marks: Kristine Kryttre's wordless scratchboard "Friend," Dame Darcy's "The Story of Lilith," Penny Moran Van Horne's scratchboard "Psycho Drifter," Mary Fleener's cubist ode to surfing "Boogie Chillun!" and Noomin's confessional "Baby Talk." There's not a clunker in the bunch, and overall, page layout, design and readability has improved. Significantly, although the pieces are longer, they're more dynamic, and the book overall is shorter and more fast-paced. Most of the contributions are limited to one piece per cartoonist, and when exceptions are made for Lay and Kominsky-Crumb, in this case, it showcases their versatility rather than their weaknesses. It also features an intro by writer, editor and author Susie Bright, whose work I have admired ever since I read RE/Search's Angry Women. Even if you have many of these contributors' solo collections, it would be worth it to own TS2 as well, because it's a rare book that is capable of supplying a reader with tears, laughter … and punches to the gut.[4]