Crumb’s connection to the Bay Area is well-known, as is his reputation as an anti-establishment cultural renegade, which he earned while developing images and running around the streets of the Haight. Crumb moved to San Francisco in 1967; by 1968, he published the first issue of Zap Comix. The magazine was radical, charting and speaking a visual language that was antithetical, in form and content, to the political, cultural and sexual repression of the 1950s.

Crumb’s satirical comics also were reactions to the Comics Code Authority implemented in 1955, which forbade violence, sex, drugs or social relevance in comics to ensure they were commercially viable.

Conversely, “underground comix” such as Zap were sexually explicit, or they commented on the Vietnam War, civil rights struggles, cultural anarchism and drugs.

Through the years, criticism of Crumb’s work has been varied. Some praise it, while others have called it racist, or immature misogynistic pornography.

No matter how one weighs in on Crumb’s artistic production, the work for which he is best known isn’t really in evidence in this display. To a certain extent, it’s what makes the exhibition interesting. It alludes to Crumb’s significance as much by what is absent as by what’s represented.

On display are what appear to be portraits of people captured at particular locations, or remembered by the artist. These drawings render individuals, often at a table, arranged together in seeming isolation — in what might be described as “being alone together.”

These free-floating renderings operate without the clear narrative that usually characterizes comics. In the end, these drawings raise more questions than they provide answers.

R. Crumb Drawings

Where: Rena Bransten Gallery, 77 Geary St., San Francisco

When: 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays; closes Feb. 24

Admission: Free

Contact: (415) 982-3292 or www.renabranstengallery.com