'Between The Lines' (RAW #3, 1991).
Krystine Kryttre is an American comic artist, painter, sculptor and performer. She was part of San Francisco's alternative comic scene in the second half of the 1980s, contributing her expressionistic-style comics to several of the Bay Area's indie publications.
Early life and career
A San Francisco native, she was born in 1958 as Kristine D. Lankenau. Her family moved to the suburbs when she was young, but in adulthood she returned to the city on her own. A fan of Robert Crumb's Zap Comix, Gilbert Shelton's 'The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers' and Heavy Metal magazine, she started out making cartoon illustrations for local punk magazines. Through Last Gasp Editor Erick Gilbert, she was introduced to the entire alternative comic scene, which included Dori Seda. Her first published comic story appeared in 1984 in the first issue of the anthology Viper, edited by Shelton.
Covers for Wimmen's Comix and Centrifugal Bumblepuppy.
Alternative comix
Between 1985 and 1992 Kryttre's work appeared in a variety of alternative publications, issued by Rip Off Press, Last Gasp or Renegade Press. These included issues of Viper, Weirdo, Wimmen's Comix, Tits & Clits, Twisted Sisters, Cannibal Romance and Raw, as well as the Fantagraphics anthology series 'Snake Eyes' (1990-1993), edited by Glenn Head and others. Steve Lafler's Cat-Head Comics released the first collection of her work, titled 'Death Warmed Over' (1990), followed years later by 'The #@@! Coloring Book' (2001) at Last Gasp. Her work was also included in 'Twisted Sisters: A Collection of Bad Girl Art' (Penguin, 1991), an anthology presenting the cream of the female indie comic scene of the time. Internationally, she was featured in the French 'Comix 2000' anthology (L'Association, 1999).
Dori Seda
A large part of Krystine Kryttre's comics career was on par with that of her close friend Dori Seda. The two women served as editors of the 11th issue of the all-female Wimmen's Comix anthology series; the first issue published by Renegade Press. The friendship between the two women was memorialized in the comic story 'Bimbos from Hell', which appeared in Weirdo #22, shortly after Dori Seda's premature death in 1988. Kryttre's story was also included in the posthumous collection of Seda's work, 'Dori Stories' (Last Gasp, 1999).
'Bimbos From Hell' (Weirdo #22, 1988).
Other art forms
By 1991, Kryttre moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles, where she gradually shifted from comics to other art forms, such as painting and taxidermy. Her paintings present the same inventive, but at times disturbing imagery as her comics work. Her satirical streak is also evident in her 'Abu & 'Mo' toys, inspired by the atrocities within Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons. Between 2002 and 2008 Kryttre was a member of the Corpus Delicti Butoh Performance Lab, which performed stage pieces and guerilla street theater in public spaces throughout Los Angeles.
Style
An influential member of the alternative comic scene of the 1980s, Krystine Kryttre's gothic-flavored comics were extreme, explicit and over-the-top. Her stories offered either psychotic slice-of-life episodes or disturbing fantasies, engraved on scratchboard with the darkest ink. Graphically, her pages reveal a raw but meticulous workmanship. She exhibited comics, sculptures and paintings in various group shows in art galleries from 1988-to present, with three solo shows at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles.
'Dolores Park' (Weirdo #26, 1989).