Writer's almanac piece on R. Crumb's Birthday 8/30/04

[oldmilwaukee6er]

This made me smile on my commute...

 

It's the birthday of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1943). When he was a kid, his older brother became obsessed with cartoons. Crumb wanted to be a fine artist, but his older brother forced him to draw cartoons instead of regular pictures. For years, he and his brother produced hundreds of comic books about a character they invented named "Felix [i assume they meant Fritz?] the Cat."

 

He got a job with the American Greetings Corporation drawing funny pictures for cards. His boss was always telling him that his pictures were too grotesque, and he had to make them cuter. At the same time, he developed a style of cartoon in which cute animal characters get involved in violent, grotesque situations.

 

In the late 1960s he moved to San Francisco and began illustrating rock concert posters and album covers and one of the pictures he drew popularized the phrase "Keep on truckin'." He began publishing comic books in 1968, and he sold his own books out of a baby carriage on Haight-Ashbury. His were among the first so-called "underground comics," aimed at adults rather than children, which addressed sex, racism, absurdity, and alienation. After developing a cult following, he published a series of collections of his comics including R. Crumb's Carloads o'Comics (1976) and Complete Crumb: Mr. Sixties (1989).

 

For most of his life, Crumb has worn a fedora hat and business suits from the 1930s. He only listens to old blues and jazz records and watches black and white television. Crumb said, "[We] must thank the gods for art, those of us who have been fortunate enough to stumble onto this means of venting our craziness, our meanness, our towering disgust."

[PUNYHUMAN]

Crumb ,a Giant!! I've always loved his work since I discovered it back in my teens,esp. his later Biographical stuff!! Priceless!!!