On Crumb – Michael Saler in TLS:
‘Robert Crumb’s life is an open comic book. With Zap Comix (1968), he launched the underground comics movement promoting uninhibited self-expression. This was exemplified by his satirical exposés of the hypocrisies of American culture and his riven personality, which contains multitudes. His surreal, frequently scatological tales combine the intricate cross-hatching of nineteenth century political cartoonists such as Thomas Nast with the goofy simplicity of Disney’s “funny animal” comics. In his infamous “Joe Blow” (Zap #4, 1969), he illustrated in unsparing detail the ideal American family united through incest (the issue became the first comic book to be declared obscene in the US); his last major work is a painstaking rendering of the book of Genesis (George Lucas purchased the original artwork in 2015 for $2.9 million).’
(…)
‘Chuck and Bea were outwardly model citizens, but behind closed doors they fought frequently, sometimes bloodily. Bea’s mental health deteriorated in the early 1950s; Chuck, tolerant of his obedient daughters, berated his three unruly sons for being unmanly and disrespectful. He struck five-year-old Robert, causing him to fall and break his collarbone, and repeatedly beat Robert’s elder brother, Charles, whom he may have guessed was homosexual. (Nadel suggests this may have been true for Chuck as well.) Monsters, yes: yet Nadel humanizes both parents by excavating their difficult lives and failed dreams.
Like the Brontës, the Crumb children survived their American gothic childhood by withdrawing into co-created imaginary worlds. Charles marshalled his three younger siblings into producing numerous comics through the 1950s and was Crumb’s acknowledged mentor, teaching him to draw fluently and rapidly. The brothers were ardent Catholics as children, but lost their faith during their teens: comics fandom replaced religion.’
(…)
‘His character “Mr. Natural”, a cynical eastern-type guru who enjoys bilking consumers of the postwar spiritual marketplace, is sometimes the real deal, spouting koans of genuine insight.’
(…)
‘Much of the imagery from this period is misogynist: Crumb gradually came to that conclusion himself. The early underground comprised young men who supported sexual liberation insofar as it helped them to get laid. But it also inspired women such as Trina Robbins and Aline Kominsky to create their own comics, extending the movement’s appeal and influence. (Aline would become Crumb’s second wife after a messy divorce in 1977.)
The underground lost its impetus after 1973, hobbled by new censorship laws and the decline of the counterculture. Burnt out after years of overwork, Crumb quit drugs, played more jazz and rethought his approach. The underground excelled at autobiographical narratives, so he began to pay closer attention to his life, changing from “door-busting visionary to contemplative chronicler of the everyday”. This was evident in Weirdo, a magazine for “adult intellectuals” that he launched in 1981. In addition to searching, self-deprecatory stories of his conflicted life, he illustrated the lives and works of artists he admired or identified with, including James Boswell, Jean-Paul Sartre and Philip K. Dick.’
(…)
‘Much of the imagery from this period is misogynist: Crumb gradually came to that conclusion himself. The early underground comprised young men who supported sexual liberation insofar as it helped them to get laid. But it also inspired women such as Trina Robbins and Aline Kominsky to create their own comics, extending the movement’s appeal and influence. (Aline would become Crumb’s second wife after a messy divorce in 1977.)
The underground lost its impetus after 1973, hobbled by new censorship laws and the decline of the counterculture. Burnt out after years of overwork, Crumb quit drugs, played more jazz and rethought his approach. The underground excelled at autobiographical narratives, so he began to pay closer attention to his life, changing from “door-busting visionary to contemplative chronicler of the everyday”. This was evident in Weirdo, a magazine for “adult intellectuals” that he launched in 1981. In addition to searching, self-deprecatory stories of his conflicted life, he illustrated the lives and works of artists he admired or identified with, including James Boswell, Jean-Paul Sartre and Philip K. Dick.’
Read the article here.
Where have the adult intellectuals gone? There is only one life, the conflicted life.
And now, waiting for Mr. Natural.