R. Crumb

This volume brings together twenty-five of R. Crumb’s most ambitious, acclaimed, and profound comics. One of the most influential and iconic cartoonists of our time, R. Crumb is celebrated for pushing the boundaries of representation, mass consumerism, and polite society. The comics in this volume exemplify Crumb’s creative output over twenty-five years following his early experimentation in the 1960s and 1970s. The comics collected here depict characters searching for an understanding of the world around and within themselves. Through adaptation, autobiography, biography, and short fiction, Crumb—much like his subjects—demands we pay attention to our darkest desires, compulsions, fears, and obsessions. Existential Comics will also feature a new, introductory comic strip by Crumb, reflecting on his practice in the context of this volume. Editor Dan Nadel’s essay further weaves together Crumb’s life, career, and influences, delving into the creative environment that informed some of the artist’s most outstanding comics.

R. Crumb’s obsessions—from sex to the Bible, music, politics, and the vicissitudes and obscenities of daily life—are chronicled in this comprehensive book of work by the illustrious American comic artist.Instrumental in the formation of the underground comics scene in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s, Crumb has ruptured and expanded the boundaries of the graphic arts, redefining comics and cartoons as countercultural art forms. Presenting a slice of Crumb’s unique universe, this book features a wide array of printed matter culled from the artist’s five-decade career—tear sheets of drawings and comics taken directly from the publications where the works first appeared, magazine and album covers, broadsides from the 1960s and 1970s, tabloids from San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, Oakland, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and other counterculture enclaves, as well as exhibition ephemera. Complementing this volume are historical works from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that have inspired Crumb and pages from his rarely seen sketchbooks from the 1970s and 1980s that reveal his exemplary skill as a draftsman. Documenting the critically acclaimed exhibition Drawing for Print: Mind Fucks, Kultur Klashes, Pulp Fiction & Pulp Fact by the Illustrious R. Crumb at David Zwirner, New York, in 2019, curated by Robert Storr, this publication offers an opportunity to immerse oneself in Crumb’s singular mind. In the accompanying text, Storr explores the challenging nature of some of Crumb’s work and the importance of artists who take on the status quo.

The Complete Zap Comix collects every issue of Zap -- every cover and every story, and even the Zam mini comic jam among the Zap artists -- in a five-volume slipcased hardcover set. It will also include the 17th unpublished issue with work by Crumb, Moscoco, Wilson, Rodriguez, Shelton, Mavrides, and Williams. Plus, an introduction by founder R. Crumb and an oral history of Zap by Patrick Rosenkranz. Zap is the most historically and aesthetically important comics series ever published.This Special Signed Edition includes everything in the regular edition, but also contains a portfolio of five gycl e prints, scanned from original pages of Zap art by Robert Crumb, Paul Mavrides, Gilbert Shelton, Robert Williams, and S. Clay Wilson, each signed by the artist. Limited to 250 copies.

"I feel that my work is but a feeble expression of something that in itself is vague and doubtful... Sometimes when I probe myself I find that my intentions in art aren't as sincere as they should be... I realize that I'm fairly good at drawing, but you see that's only because I've done so much of it, and it seems sometimes that the only reason I have stuck at it so diligently is because I have to sort of get even with society for not accepting me... Subconsciously I want to make myself immortal among men, leave my mark on the earth to compensate for social inadequacy... So I draw." --R. Crumb, 9/29/61 Spanning the most formative era of his life, from the painful years of adolescence to the fame and fortune of early adulthood, this collection of personal correspondences with two near-lifelong friends sheds light on the artistic development, bitter struggle, and ultimate triumph of the world's greatest living cartoonist.Crumb writes about many key events in his life: the dissolution of his first marriage, the pain of being separated from his first child, his troubles with the IRS, and his obsessions with comics, music and women, most notably his earliest experiences with Aline Kominsky-Crumb, now his wife of over 30 years. An entertaining and revealing look into the mind of a great artist and thinker; this is Crumb's sketchbook of words, featuring scores of rare art, including entire letters drawn in cartoon form.

Who could have imagined that in 1972, when Aline Kominsky, a Long Island escapee and bodaciously talented artist, broke her foot one rainy fall day, it would result in the most unique collaboration in comics history? Laid up in her house, she was persuaded by R. Crumb, her nerdy, neurotic boyfriend, to pass the time drawing together a "two-man" comic. The result is a jaw-dropping yet tender account, not only of the joys and challenges of a legendary marriage but also of the obstacles faced by struggling female artists. In Drawn Together, our foremost male-female cartooning couple recall their success at shocking America with Weirdo Magazine, the life-altering birth of their precocious daughter Sophie, and their astonishing move to the safe haven of France. With an irresistible introduction and a striking four-color section, Drawn Together becomes a graphic cause-celebre and a must-have for any comics devotee.

Robert Crumb first began drawing record covers in 1968 when Janis Joplin, a fellow Haight Ashbury denizen, asked him to provide a cover for her album Cheap Thrills. It was an invitation the budding artist couldn't resist, especially since he had been fascinated with record covers-particularly for the legendary jazz, country, and old-time blues music of the 1920s and 1930s-since he was a teen. This early collaboration proved so successful that Crumb went on to draw hundreds of record covers for both new artists and largely forgotten masters. So remarkable were Crumb's artistic interpretations of these old 78 rpm singles that the art itself proved influential in their rediscovery in the 1960s and 1970s. Including such classics as Truckin' My Blues Away, Harmonica Blues, and Please Warm My Weiner, Crumb's opus also features more recent covers done for CDs. R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection is a must-have for any lover of graphics and old-time music.

Cute little kittens, angels, and babies? Flowers, ice cream cones, and German boy bands? Coming from, supposedly, the creepiest and most pessimistic artist of his generation? Yes indeed, there is a "sweeter side" to R. Crumb. These delectable illustrations—whether depicting Bernie the Cat pawing for his master's affection, the timeworn beauty of a French village cul-de-sac, or a quiet night chez Crumb—wonderfully exemplify the many tender moments that have, until now, played second fiddle to the cult icon's more raunchy sketches. Now Crumb harkens back to his humble American beginnings as a Cleveland greeting card illustrator, when his innate knack for the grotesque had to be suppressed for the perennial appeal of "cute." The result is this cheery and blue-skied world, where readers of every conceivable personality type, age group, even sexual persuasion can finally enjoy the artist's momentary lapse from naughty to nice.

Envisioning the first book of the bible like no one before him, R. Crumb, the legendary illustrator, reveals here the story of Genesis in a profoundly honest and deeply moving way. Originally thinking that we would do a take off of Adam and Eve, Crumb became so fascinated by the Bible s language, a text so great and so strange that it lends itself readily to graphic depictions, that he decided instead to do a literal interpretation using the text word for word in a version primarily assembled from the translations of Robert Alter and the King James bible. Now, readers of every persuasion Crumb fans, comic book lovers, and believers can gain astonishing new insights from these harrowing, tragic, and even juicy stories. Crumb s Book of Genesis reintroduces us to the bountiful tree lined garden of Adam and Eve, the massive ark of Noah with beasts of every kind, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by brimstone and fire that rained from the heavens, and the Egypt of the Pharaoh, where Joseph s embalmed body is carried in a coffin, in a scene as elegiac as any in Genesis. Using clues from the text and peeling away the theological and scholarly interpretation that have often obscured the Bible s most dramatic stories, Crumb fleshes out a parade of Biblical originals: from the serpent in Eden, the humanoid reptile appearing like an alien out of a science fiction movie, to Jacob, a kind ve depressed guy who doesn t strike you as physically courageous, and his bother, Esau, a rough and kick ass guy, to Abraham s wife Sarah, more fetching than most woman at 90, to God himself, a standard Charlton Heston-like figure with long white hair and a flowing beard. As Crumb writes in his introduction, the stories of these people, the Hebrews, were something more than just stories. They were the foundation, the source, in writing of religious and political power, handed down by God himself. Crumb s Book of Genesis, the culmination of 5 years of painstaking work, is a tapestry of masterly detail and storytelling which celebrates the astonishing diversity of the one of our greatest artistic geniuses. Nominated for three 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards: Best Adaptation from Another Work, Best Graphic Album, Best Writer/Artist."

Seminal underground comics artist Crumb has gained wider recognition, thanks to an acclaimed documentary about him. Libraries wanting some representative Crumb in the wake of the movie may be better served by this single volume featuring one of his most famous creations than by the multivolume reprinting of all of his work that Fantagraphics has about half-completed. The bearded, robed, curmudgeonly guru Mr. Natural hasn't changed much since his 1967 debut. An ever-serene-but-horny philosopher-for-hire, dispensing enlightenment to an undeserving world--is he a wise, grizzled mystic or a cynical charlatan? A teller of timeless truths or a sixties anachronism? Wherever he appears, so do his most loyal acolyte, Flakey Foont, and his obsession, the lusty Devil Girl. The collection constitutes a sheer delight for those who have followed the Natch's exploits over the years, yet it is completely accessible to nonaficionados--at least those undaunted by the raunchiness that is another thing that hasn't changed since the sage's early days