| Robert Crumb | |
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 Crumb in 2014 | |
| Born | Robert Dennis Crumb (1943-08-30)August 30, 1943 (age 82) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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| Pseudonym | R. Crumb |
Notable works | |
| Spouses | |
| Children | Jesse Crumb (1968–2018), Sophie Crumb (1981) |
| Relatives | Charles Crumb Jr. (brother) Maxon Crumb (brother) |
| rcrumb | |
Robert Dennis Crumb (/krʌm/; born August 30, 1943) is an American artist who often signs his workR. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia forAmerican folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture.
Crumb contributed to many of the seminal works of theunderground comix movement in the 1960s, including being a founder of the first successful underground comix publication,Zap Comix, contributing to all 16 issues. He was additionally contributing to theEast Village Other and many other publications, including a variety of one-off and anthology comics. During this time, inspired by psychedelics and cartoons from the 1920s and 1930s, he introduced a wide variety of characters that became extremely popular, includingcountercultural iconsFritz the Cat andMr. Natural, and the images from hisKeep On Truckin' strip. Sexual themes abounded in all these projects, often shading intoscatological and pornographic comics. In the mid-1970s, he contributed to theArcade anthology; following the decline of the underground, he moved towards biographical and autobiographical subjects while refining his drawing style, a heavilycrosshatched pen-and-ink style inspired by late 19th- and early 20th-century cartooning. Much of his work appeared in a magazine he founded,Weirdo (1981–1993), which was one of the most prominent publications of thealternative comics era. As his career progressed, his comic work became more autobiographical.
In 1991 Crumb was inducted into the comic book industry'sWill Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, and in 1994 theTerry Zwigoff filmCrumb explored his artistic career and personal life. He was married to cartoonistAline Kominsky-Crumb, with whom he frequently collaborated. Their daughter,Sophie Crumb, has also followed a cartooning career.
Robert Crumb was born August 30, 1943, inPhiladelphia toCatholic parents[1] of English and Scottish descent, spending his early years inWest Philadelphia andUpper Darby.[2][3] His father, Charles Vincent Crumb (January 16, 1914–April 24, 1982), authored the bookTraining People Effectively.[1]
His mother, Beatrice Loretta Crumb (née Hall) (June 1, 1920 – May 29, 1997), was a housewife who reportedlyabused diet pills andamphetamines. Crumb's parents' marriage was unhappy and the children were frequent witnesses to their parents' arguments.[4][5] The couple had four other children: sonsCharles Vincent Crumb Jr. (March 13, 1942 – February 1992) andMaxon Crumb (b. 1945), both of whom suffered from mental illness, and daughters Carol (April 15, 1941 – May 20, 2020)[6] and Sandra (1946 – 1998).[7][8][9] The family often moved between Philadelphia and Charles's hometown,Albert Lea, Minnesota. In August 1950, the Crumbs moved toAmes, Iowa.[10] For two years, Charles, a Marine Corps sergeant, was an instructor in the Naval R.O.T.C. program atIowa State College.[10] The family moved toMilford, Delaware, when Crumb was twelve and where he was an average student whose teachers discouraged him from cartooning.[11]
Inspired byWalt Kelly,Fleischer Brothers animation and others, Crumb and his brothers drew their own comics.[1] His cartooning developed as his older brotherCharles pushed him and provided feedback. In 1958 the brothers self-published three issues ofFoo in imitation ofHarvey Kurtzman's satiricalHumbug andMad which they sold door-to-door with little success, souring the young Crumb on the comic-book business.[12] At fifteen, Crumb collected classical jazz and blues records from the 1920s to the 1940s.[1] At age 16 he lost his Catholic faith.[13]
Crumb's father gave him $40 when he left home after high school.[13] His first job, in 1962, was drawing novelty greeting cards forAmerican Greetings[14] inCleveland, Ohio. He stayed with the company for four years, producing hundreds of cards for the company's Hi-Brow line; his superiors had him draw in a cuter style that was to leave a footprint on his work throughout his career.[15]
In Cleveland, he met a group of youngbohemians such asBuzzy Linhart, Liz Johnston, andHarvey Pekar. Dissatisfied with greeting card work, he tried to sell cartoons to comic book companies, who showed little interest in his work. In 1965, cartoonistHarvey Kurtzman printed some of Crumb's work in the humor magazine he edited,Help! Crumb moved to New York, intending to work with Kurtzman, butHelp! ceased publication shortly after. Crumb briefly illustrated bubblegum cards forTopps before returning to Cleveland and American Greetings.[14]
Crumb married Dana Morgan in 1964. Nearly destitute, the couple traveled in Europe, during which Crumb continued to produce work for Kurtzman and American Greetings, and Dana stole food.[16] The relationship was unstable as Crumb frequently went his own way, and he was not close to his son, Jesse (born in 1968).[17]
In 1965 and 1966 Crumb had a number ofFritz the Cat strips published in the men's magazineCavalier. Fritz had appeared in Crumb's work as early as the late 1950s; he was to become a hipster, scam artist, and bohemian until Crumb abandoned the character in 1969.[15]
Crumb was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with his job and marriage when in June 1965 he began takingLSD, apsychedelic drug that was then still legal. He had both good andbad trips. One bad trip left him in a muddled state for half a year, during which for a time he left Dana; the state ended when the two took a strong dose of the drug together in April 1966. Crumb created a number of his best-known characters during his years of LSD use, includingMr. Natural,Angelfood McSpade, and theSnoid.[18] His work in the underground comics scene coincided with the rise ofTimothy Leary's acid tests and psychedelics generally which led to deals with psychedelic artists such as the Grateful Dead.[19]
In January 1967 Crumb came across two friends in a bar who were about to leave for San Francisco;[19] Crumb was interested in the work of San Francisco-based psychedelic poster artists, and on a whim asked if he could join them.[20] There, he contributed upbeat LSD-inspired countercultural work tounderground newspapers. The work was popular, and Crumb was flooded with requests, including to illustrate a full issue ofPhiladelphia'sYarrowstalks.[21]
Independent publisherDon Donahue invited Crumb to make a comic book; Crumb drew up two issues ofZap Comix, and Donahue published the first[21] in February 1968 under the publisher nameApex Novelties. Crumb had difficulty at first finding retailers who would stock it, and at first his wife took to selling the first run herself out of a baby carriage.[22]
Crumb met cartoonistS. Clay Wilson, an art school graduate who saw himself as a rebel against middle-class American values and whose comics were violent and grotesque. Wilson's attitude inspired Crumb to give up the idea of the cartoonist-as-entertainer and to focus on comics as open, uncensored self-expression; in particular, his work soon became sexually explicit, as in the pornographicSnatch he and Wilson produced late in 1968.[22]
The second issue ofZap appeared in June with contributions from Wilson and poster artistsVictor Moscoso andRick Griffin. ArtistH.Fish also contributed toZap. In December, Donahue published the still-unreleased issue as#0 and a new third issue withGilbert Shelton joining the roster of regulars.[22]Zap was financially successful, and developed a market for underground comix.
Crumb was a prolific cartoonist in the late 1960s and early 1970s; at his peak output he produced 320 pages over two years.[13] He produced much of his best-known work then,[23] including hisKeep On Truckin' strip, and strips featuring characters such as the bohemianFritz the Cat, spiritual guruMr. Natural, and oversexed African-American stereotypeAngelfood McSpade.[24] During this period, he launched a series of solo titles, includingDespair,Uneeda (published by Print Mint in 1969 and 1970 respectively),Big Ass Comics,R. Crumb's Comics and Stories,Motor City Comics (all published byRip Off Press in 1969),Home Grown Funnies (Kitchen Sink Press, 1971) andHytone Comix (Apex Novelties, 1971), in addition to founding the pornographic anthologiesJiz andSnatch (both Apex Novelties, 1969).[25]
Crumb's work also appeared inNasty Tales, a 1970s British underground comic. The publishers were acquitted in a celebrated 1972 obscenity trial at theOld Bailey in London; the first such case involving a comic. Giving evidence at the trial, one of the defendants said of Crumb: "He is the most outstanding, certainly the most interesting, artist to appear from the underground, and this (Dirty Dog) isRabelaisian satire of a very high order. He is using coarseness quite deliberately to get across a view of social hypocrisy."[26][27]
While meditating in 1980, Crumb conceived of a magazine with alowbrow aesthetic inspired bypunk zines,Mad, and men's magazines of the 1940s and 1950s.[28] From 1981 Crumb edited the first nine issues of the twenty-eight issue run ofWeirdo, published byLast Gasp;[29] his contributions and tastes determined the contents of the later issues as well, edited byPeter Bagge until#17, and Aline for the remainder of the run.[28] The magazine featured cartoonists new and old, and had a mixed response. Crumb'sfumetti was so unpopular that it has never appeared in Crumb collections.[30]
The Crumbs moved into a house in southern France in 1991, which is said to have been financed by the sale of six Crumb sketchbooks.[31] The documentaryCrumb, directed byTerry Zwigoff, appeared in 1994[32] — a project on which Zwigoff had been working since 1985.[29] The film won several major critical accolades.
From 1987 to 2005Fantagraphics Books published the seventeen-volumeComplete Crumb Comics[33] and ten volumes of sketches. Crumb (as "R. Crumb") contributes regularly toMineshaft magazine, which, since 2009, has been serializing "Excerpts From R. Crumb's Dream Diary".[34]
In 2009 Crumb producedThe Book of Genesis, an unabridged illustratedgraphic novel version of the biblicalBook of Genesis.[35][36] In 2016, theSeattle Art Museum displayed the original drawings forThe Book of Genesis as part of an exhibit entitled "Graphic Masters: Dürer, Rembrandt, Hogarth, Goya, Picasso, R. Crumb".[37]
In January 2015, Crumb was asked to submit a cartoon to the left-wing newspaperLibération as a tribute for theCharlie Hebdo shooting. He sent a drawing titled "A Cowardly Cartoonist", depicting an illustration of the backside of "Mohamid Bakhsh", a reference toMuhammad, founder of Islam, andRalph Bakshi, who directed the film adaptationFritz the Cat (1972).[38][39]
In 1989, in an issue ofHup magazine, Crumb had drawn a satirical comic,Point the Finger, lampooning businessmanDonald Trump. This comic received more media attention in 2016, when Trump was elected U.S. President.[40] Crumb has remained a vocal opponent of Trump and his administration, which he expressed in various interviews[41] and comics.[42]
A friend of comic book writerHarvey Pekar, Crumb illustrated over 30 stories of Pekar's in the comic book seriesAmerican Splendor, primarily in the first eight issues (1976–1983).[43] AsThe Complete Crumb Comics co-editor Robert Fiore wrote about their collaborations:
... inAmerican Splendor, Crumb's work stood out for ... the way he really made Pekar's voice SING. His style embodied Pekar's voice ... He turned Pekar's scripts into pure comics, into something that would have been inferior in any other medium ... But I think what makes all of their collaborations work so well is the fact that Crumb is as sympathetic a collaborator as Pekar ever had. It's not just the fact that Crumb draws better than everybody else, he knew what to draw. Just as Pekar knew what to write ... Their mutual understanding of each other helped me appreciate each as artists and voices ...[44]
Crumb collaborated with his wife,Aline Kominsky-Crumb, on many strips and comics, includingDirty Laundry Comics,Self-Loathing Comics, and work published inThe New Yorker.[45]
In 1978, Crumb allowed his artwork to be used as pictorial rubber stamp designs byTop Drawer Rubber Stamp Company, a collaboration between cartoonistArt Spiegelman, publisherFrançoise Mouly, and people living atQuarry Hill Creative Center inRochester, Vermont. R. Crumb's imagery proved to be some of the most popular designs produced by this avant-garde pictorial stamp company.[46]
In the 1980s and 1990s, Crumb illustrated a number of writerCharles Bukowski's stories, including the collectionThe Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship and the story "Bring Me Your Love".[47]
In 1984–1985 Crumb produced a series of illustrations for the tenth anniversary edition ofEdward Abbey's environmental-themed novelThe Monkey Wrench Gang, published in 1985 by Dream Garden Press of Salt Lake City. Many of these illustrations also appeared in a 1987 Monkey Wrench Gang calendar, and remain available on T-shirts.[48]
R. Crumb Comix, a theatrical production based on his work and directed by Johnny Simons, was produced inFort Worth, Texas, in 1986. It was revived atDuke University in 1990, and co-starredAvner Eisenberg. The development of the play was supervised by Crumb, who also served as set designer, drawing larger-than-life representations of some of his most famous characters all over the floors and walls of the set.[49]
Crumb's collaboration withDavid Zane Mairowitz, the illustrated, part-comic biography and bibliographyIntroducing Kafka (1993), a.k.a.Kafka for Beginners, is one of his less sexual- and satire-oriented, comparably highbrow works. It is well-known and favorably received, and due to its popularity was republished asR. Crumb's Kafka.
Crumb has frequently drawn comics about his musical interests inblues,country,bluegrass,cajun, FrenchBal-musette,jazz,big band andswing music from the 1920s and 1930s, and they also heavily influenced the soundtrack choices for his bandmate Zwigoff's 1995Crumb documentary. In 2006, he prepared, compiled and illustrated the bookR. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country, with accompanying CD, which derived from three series oftrading cards originally published in the 1980s.[50]
Crumb was the leader of the bandR. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders, for which he sang lead vocals, wrote several songs and played banjo and other instruments.[51] Crumb often plays mandolin withEden and John's East River String Band and has drawn four covers for them: 2009'sDrunken Barrel House Blues, 2008'sSome Cold Rainy Day, 2011'sBe Kind To A Man When He's Down on which he playsmandolin, the latest (2022) "Goodbye Cruel World", on which he sings vocals, plays ukulele, mandolin & tiple. In 2013 he played on their albumTake A Look at That Baby and also took part in the accompanying music video.
With Dominique Cravic, in 1986 he founded "Les Primitifs du Futur"—a French band whose eclectic music has incorporated Bal-musette, folk, jazz, blues and world music—playing on their albums "Cocktail d'Amour" (1986), "Trop de Routes, Trop de Trains" (1995), "World Musette" (1999)[52] and "Tribal Musette" (2008). He also provided thecover art for these albums.
Crumb has released CDs anthologizing old original performances gleaned from collectible78-rpmphonograph records. HisThat's What I Call Sweet Music was released in 1999 andHot Women: Women Singers from the Torrid Regions in 2009.Chimpin' the Blues, a collaboration with fellow record collectorJerry Zolten that combines rare recordings with conversation about the music and the musicians, was released in 2013. Crumb drew the cover art for these CDs as well.
Crumb has illustrated many album covers, most prominentlyCheap Thrills byBig Brother and the Holding Company and thecompilation albumThe Music Never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead.
Between 1974 and 1984, Crumb drew at least 17 album covers forYazoo Records/Blue Goose Records, including those of the Cheap Suit Serenaders. He also created the revised logo and record label designs of Blue Goose Records that were used from 1974 onward.
In 1992 and 1993, Robert Crumb was involved in a project by Dutch formationthe Beau Hunks and provided the cover art for both their albumsThe Beau Hunks play the original Laurel & Hardy music 1 and 2. He also illustrated the albums' booklets.
In 2009, Crumb drew the artwork for a 10-CD anthology of French traditional music compiled byGuillaume Veillet forFrémeaux & Associés [de;fr;nl].[53] The following year, he created three artworks for Christopher King'sAimer Et Perdre: To Love And To Lose: Songs, 1917–1934.[54]
As told by Crumb in hisbiographical film, his artwork was very conventional and traditional in the beginning. His earlier work shows more restraint in his style. In Crumb's own words, it was a lengthy drug trip onLSD that "left him fuzzy for two months" and led to him adopting the surrealistic,psychedelic style for which he has become known.[55]
A peer in the underground comics field,Victor Moscoso, commented on his first impression of Crumb's work, in the mid-1960s, before meeting Crumb in person: "I couldn't tell if it was an old man drawing young, or a young man drawing old."[56] Crumb's cartooning style has drawn on the work of cartoon artists from earlier generations, includingBilly DeBeck (Barney Google),C. E. Brock (an old story book illustrator),Gene Ahern's comic strips,Basil Wolverton (Powerhouse Pepper),George Baker (Sad Sack),Ub Iwerks's characters for animation,Friz Freleng's drawings for the earlyMerrie Melodies andLooney Tunes of the 1930s,Sidney Smith (The Gumps),Rube Goldberg,E. C. Segar (Popeye) andBud Fisher (Mutt and Jeff). Crumb has citedCarl Barks, who illustrated Disney's "Donald Duck" comic books, andJohn Stanley (Little Lulu) as formative influences on his narrative approach, as well asHarvey Kurtzman ofMad magazine fame.
Fellow underground cartoonistArt Spiegelman remarked that upon meeting Crumb for the first time and seeing his work, he became 'satisfied' that Crumb would do all the revolutionary things in comics that he had initially hoped to do himself.[57] He also called Crumb "one of the world’s greatest cartoonists ever."[58]
After issues 0 and 1 ofZap, Crumb began working with others, of whom the first wasS. Clay Wilson. Crumb said, about when he first saw Wilson's work "The content was something like I'd never seen before, ... a nightmare vision of hell-on-earth ..." And "Suddenly my own work seemed insipid ..."[59]
Crumb remains a prominent figure, as both artist and influence, within thealternative comics milieu. He is hailed as a genius by such comic book talents asJaime Hernandez,Daniel Clowes,Chris Ware,Seth,Joe Sacco andPeter Bagge. Other cartoonists who have praised or cited Crumb's work as an influence includeHergé,Will Eisner,Moebius,Carl Barks,Charles M. Schulz,Lynda Barry andAlison Bechdel.[60][61][62][63][64][65]
The art criticRobert Hughes called Crumb "theBrueghel of the last half of the twentieth century" and "the one and only genius the1960s underground produced in visual art, either inAmerica or Europe."[66][67] Comic critic Andrew D. Arnold, writing forTime Magazine, stated that "Crumb’s impact on his field, as well as his longevity as a crucial artist, rivals that ofPicasso."[68]
In the fall of 2008, theInstitute of Contemporary Art inPhiladelphia hosted a major exhibition of his work, which was favorably reviewed inThe New York Times[69] and inThe Philadelphia Inquirer.[70]
From October 10 – December 20, 2025,David Zwirner Gallery, Los Angeles, mountedR. Crumb: Tales of Paranoia, exhibiting new works by Crumb. In connection with the exhibit, Crumb released his first new comic book in 23 years also titledTales of Paranoia.[71]
Crumb has received several accolades for his work, including theInkpot Award in 1989,[76] a nomination for theHarvey Special Award for Humor in 1990 and theAngoulême Grand Prix in 1999.
WithJack Kirby,Will Eisner,Harvey Kurtzman,Gary Panter, andChris Ware, Crumb was among the artists honored in the exhibition "Masters of American Comics" at theJewish Museum in New York City, from September 16, 2006, to January 28, 2007.[77][78]
In 2017, Crumb's original cover art for the 1969Fritz the Cat collection published by Ballantine sold at auction for $717,000, the highest sale price to that point for any piece of American cartoon art.[79]
In addition to numerous brief television reports, there are at least three television or theatrical documentaries dedicated to Crumb.
Crumb and his work are featured inRon Mann'sComic Book Confidential (1988).
In theStar Wars movieReturn of the Jedi (1983), the name of the characterSalacious B. Crumb is derived from, and is an homage to, Crumb.[81][82]
In the 2003 movieAmerican Splendor, Crumb was portrayed byJames Urbaniak. Crumb's wife Aline was quoted as saying she hated the interpretation and never would have married Robert if he was like that.[83]
In 2005, Crumb brought legal action againstAmazon.com after their website used a version of his widely recognizable "Keep On Truckin'" character. The case was expected to be settled out of court.[84]
Underground rap artistAesop Rock mentions Crumb several times in his lyrics, including in the songs "Catacomb Kids" from the albumNone Shall Pass and "Nickel Plated Pockets" from his EP "Daylight".
R. Crumb's Sex Obsessions, a collection of his most personally revealing sexually oriented drawings and comic strips, was released byTaschen Publishing in November 2007. In August 2011, following concerns about his safety, Crumb cancelled plans to visit the Graphic 2011 festival in Sydney, Australia, after a tabloid labeled him a "self-confessed sex pervert" in an article headlined "Cult genius or filthy weirdo?"[85][86]
In 2012, Crumb appeared onJohn's Old Time Radio Show, talking about old music, sex, aliens andBigfoot. He also played 78-rpm records from his record room in southern France. He has appeared on the show and recorded at least fourteen one-hour podcasts.[87][88]
Crumb has been married twice. He first married Dana Morgan in 1964,[16] who gave birth to their son Jesse in 1968.[89] Crumb met cartoonistAline Kominsky in 1972;[90] their relationship soon turned serious and they began living together (on the same property shared by Dana Crumb).[91] In 1978, Crumb divorced Dana and married Aline, with whom Crumb has frequently collaborated.[23] In September 1981 Aline gave birth to Crumb's second child,Sophie.[29] Robert, Aline, and Sophie moved to a small village nearSauve in southern France in 1991.[92] Dana died in 2014.[93] Aline died in 2022.[94]
At age six, Crumb's son was featured as a character in Robert and Aline'sDirty Laundry Comics No. 1 (Cartoonists Co-Op Press, 1974); he also appeared as an adult inTerry Zwigoff's 1994 documentary film,Crumb. On New Year's Eve, December 31, 2017, Crumb's son was seriously injured in a car crash nearPhillipsville, California, and died three days later; he was 49 years old.[89]
Crumb was a member of theChurch of the SubGenius.[95]
Crumb has frequently been the target of criticism due to his recurring themes of graphic sexual and violent abuse of women.[96] Crumb himself has frequently admitted his insecurity and hostility in relation to women:
I have these hostilities toward women. I admit it. ... It's out there in the open. ... It's very strong. It ruthlessly forces itself out of me onto the paper. ... I hope that somehow revealing that truth about myself is helpful, ... but I have to do it.[97]
In addition to being the target of speculation by critical theorists and academic researchers, Crumb has also been held to scrutiny, by feminist writerDeirdre English. English has been quoted as saying that Crumb engages in "self-indulgent fantasies" through his work, continually blurring the line between entertainment and pornography.[98]
He has been the target of criticism by colleagues as well, such asTrina Robbins, who called Crumb a "sexist pig"[99] due to his sexual hostility towards women.[100]
Crumb's work is also filled with unsavory images of African Americans (such as his recurring characterAngelfood McSpade), who are often portrayed as indigent, tribal, andcaricatured. Crumb often used African American characters as "tokens," appearing as re-used tropes such as clowns, tribesmen, athletes, etc. Researcher Edward Shannon interpreted the themes of Crumb's story containing marginalized Africans in "When the Niggers Take Over America" (published in 1993 inWeirdo) like this: "Crumb ... explores both the American Dream and its nightmare reflection; in this ... stripall-American white middle class children are depicted as cannibals eager to devour the devalued and dehumanizedother."[101] Crumb has responded to criticism by claiming that he did not invent racist caricature, but that they were part of the American culture in which he was raised.[102][103] He sees his art as a criticism of the racist stereotype itself and assumed that the audience who read his work in the late 1960s were not racists and would understand his intentions.[102][104]
1987 Monkey Wrench Gang calendar.
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