1943- American Cartoonist, satarist and world class malcontent.
Born in Philadelphia, an entirely self taught artist. He and his brothers drew comics for their own amusement. Their status as a dysfunctional family is documented in the film "Crumb." During his teen years he drew the first versions of Fritz the Cat. In 1962 they moved to Cleveland. Robert got a job with American Greeting Cards. He married his first wife Dana in 1964. He worked for a number of different publications during this period, including "Help magazine" published by Harvey Kurtzman who co-founded MAD MAGAZINE.
While living in the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco during the hippie movement of the 1960s, he created the classic underground comix series, Zap Comix (1967), and Snatch 1968), featuring the overtly sexual escapades of Mr. Natural, the grotesquely voluptuous Angelfood McSpade, the sexually repressed suburbanite Whiteman, and many others. He was the creator of the cartoon symbol of an era, the strutting hippie over the slogan, "Keep On Truckin'."
Comics he worked on include:
He did the cover art for a Big Brother and the Holding Company album that Janis Joplin also sang on and was titled "Cheap Thrills".
In 1974 he married his second wife, Aline Kominsky. Together they created a magazine called Wierdo.
In 1972 he organized a jazz band called The Cheap Suit Serenaders, the band includes film director/artist Terry Zwigoff. He plays banjo and sometimes sings.
Albums they've released include:
One of their tunes is Pedal Your Blues Away.
During the 80's he is profiled in People, Newsweek, and on the BBC.
In 1990 his work is featured prominently in New York Museum of Modern Art show, High and Low.
In 1993 he did the illustrations for a book called Introducing Kafka.
In 1994, Zwigoff made a movie about Robert called simply "Crumb." Some consider this a dark film as it highlights just how disfunctional a family the brothers Crumb came from. I consider it well worth seeing. No one would make up a story like this.
These days some of his work is being republished by Fantagraphics, including a compendium of his work called The Complete Crumb Comics.
Books by or containing work by Crumb include:
Related nodes:
Sources:
www.beam.to/crumb
http://www.stat.pitt.edu/~stoffer/Crumb.html
http://www.fantagraphics.com/artist/crumb/csketch/csketch.html
Groth, Gary, "The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 4: Mr. Sixties, Fantagraphics Books, 1989
Last Updated 04.07.04