Art Spiegelman, the artist most famous for his novel Maus, makes comix. No, that's not a typo, as he explains in an article The Atlantic published last week: Comix have a heritage distinct from the humorous strips found in newspapers. They're a gleeful blend of art and writing with roots in 1960s counterculture, X-rated cartoons, and the alternative press. Spiegelman is a well-known practitioner, but his path was paved by many earlier artists'people such as Jules Feiffer, who died in January at age 95, and whom Spiegelman remembers fondly as 'a trailblazer in seeking out a new audience that wasn't just kids anymore.' Another one of the genre's most influential figures, and the man who 'effectively invented' the form, is the id-driven, lascivious, hippie titan R. Crumb: an artist who 'dove to the depths not just of his own subconscious, but of something collectively screwy, bringing up all the American muck,' as my colleague Gal Beckerman wrote for The Atlantic's May issue. Crumb's...
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