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ROBERT CRUMB/ 2012
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Prints on paper: Portraits 3 | | Medium: | Giclée on Japanese matte paper | | Size (inches): | 16.5 x 11.7 (paper size) | | Size (mm): | 420 x 297 (paper size) | | Edition size: | 25 | | Catalog #: | PP_0259 | | Description: | From an edition of 25. Signed, titled, date, copyright, edition in pencil on the reverse / Aside from the numbered edition of 5 artist's proofs and 2 printer's proofs.
"When people say 'What are underground comics?' I think the best way you can define them is just the absolute freedom involved... we didn't have anyone standing over us."
- Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb -
Robert Dennis Crumb (born August 30, 1943)—known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.[1]
Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded as its most prominent figure. Though one of the most celebrated of comic book artists, Crumb's entire career has unfolded outside the mainstream comic book publishing industry. One of his most recognized works is the "Keep on Truckin'" comic, which became a widely distributed fixture of pop culture in the 1970s. Others are the characters Devil Girl, Fritz the Cat, and Mr. Natural.
He was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1991.
Life and career:
Robert Crumb was born on August 30, 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is of English and Scottish ancestry, and is related to former U.S. president Andrew Jackson on his mother's side.[2] His father, Charles, was a career officer in the United States Marine Corps; his mother, Beatrice, a housewife who reportedly abused diet pills and amphetamines. Their marriage was unhappy and the children—Robert, Charles, Maxon, Sandra and Carol—were frequent witnesses to their parents' loud arguments. Crumb's first job as an artist was for the Topps company. He was hired by Woody Gelman and drew illustrations for an internal publication that offered premiums to gum salesmen such as toasters and blenders.[3]
Crumb's first major production was a hardcover graphic novel entitled The Yum Yum Book which he drew in 1963. It is a "fractured fairy tale" concerning a frog named Oggie. Oggie climbs a magic beanstalk to escape the fools of earth and there in the clouds falls in love with a giant, silly, sexy girl named Guntra who wants only to devour the frog. This story also introduces the character of Fritz the Cat. As of 2011, the book is in print as a paperback retitled Big Yum Yum Book: the Story of Oggie and the Beanstalk.
In the mid 1960s, Crumb left home and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he designed greeting cards for the American Greetings corporation, and met a group of young bohemians including Buzzy Linhart, Liz Johnston, and others. Johnston introduced him to his future wife, Dana Morgan. In 1967, encouraged by the reaction to some drawings he had published in underground newspapers, including Philadelphia's Yarrowstalks, Crumb moved to San Francisco, California, the center of the counterculture movement. Crumb, with the backing of Don Donahue, published the first issue of his Zap Comix on January 18, 1968, printed by Beat poet Charles Plymell.[4] After years in California, and a second marriage to Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Crumb and family moved to a small village near Sauve in southern France in 1993,[5] where he now resides. The artist is represented by David Zwirner, New York.[6]
Publications:
Crumb is a prolific artist and contributed to many of the seminal works of the underground comics movement in the 1960s, including being a founder of Zap Comix, contributing to all 16 issues, and additionally contributing to the East 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, including Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural. Sexual themes abounded in all these projects, often shading into scatological and pornographic comics. In the mid-1970s, he contributed to the Arcade anthology, and in the 1980s, to Weirdo (which he created and co-edited).
As Crumb got older, his comic work became more autobiographical. He frequently collaborates with his wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, on comics. His complete comics and selections from his sketchbooks have been published by Fantagraphics[7] in seventeen volumes of comics and ten volumes of sketches to date. R. Crumb contributes regularly to Mineshaft magazine. Since 2009, Mineshaft has been serializing "Excerpts From R. Crumb's Dream Diary".[8]
Musical projects:
Crumb has frequently drawn comics about his musical interests in blues, country, bluegrass, cajun, French Bal-musette, jazz, big band and swing music from the 1920s and 30's, and they also heavily influenced the soundtrack choices for his band mate Zwigoff's 1994 Crumb documentary.
Crumb was the leader of the band R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders, for which he sang lead vocals, wrote several songs and played banjo and other instruments. Crumb often plays mandolin with Eden and John's East River String Band and has drawn three covers for them: 2009's "Drunken Barrel House Blues," 2008's "Some Cold Rainy Day," and 2011's "Be Kind To A Man When He's Down" which he also plays mandolin on. He was - together with Dominique Cravic - the founder of "Les Primitifs du Futur", a French music band, based on French musette/folk, jazz and blues, and played on that band's 2000 album "World Musette".[24]. He as well drew the cover art of this, and some more albums.
Crumb has also released CDs anthologizing old original performances gleaned from collectible 78 RPM phonograph records. His "That's What I Call Sweet Music" was released in 1999. His "Hot Women: Women Singers from the Torrid Regions" was released in 2009. Naturally, Crumb drew the cover art for these CDs as well.
Album covers:
Crumb has illustrated many album covers, including most prominently Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company and the compilation album The Music Never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead.
Between 1974 and 1984, Crumb drew at least 17 album covers for Yazoo 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 a Dutch formation, The Beau Hunks, and for both their albums "The Beau Hunks play the original Laurel & Hardy music" (1 & 2), he was the album cover illustrator, as well as for the albums' booklets.
Also in 2009, he drew the artwork for a 10-CD anthology of French traditional music (compiled by Guillaume Veillet for Frémeaux & Associés).[25]
In 2011 he drew his third album cover for Eden and John's East River String Band "Be Kind To A Man When He's Down", on which he also plays mandolin.
References:
1. ^ New York Times
2. ^ Crumb, Robert Crumb Family Comics. Last Gasp, 1998. ISBN 0867194278, where he discusses his ancestry at length in a hand-written essay.
3. ^ Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, p. 128, Dave Jamieson, 2010, Atlantic Monthly Press, imprint of Grove/Atlantic Inc., New York, New York, ISBN 978-0-8021-1939-1
4. ^ "Hand printed first issue of ZAP Comics". Undergroundcollectibles.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
5. ^ MOVIES : Creep Show : A new film shines disturbing light on the very dark family secrets of cartoonist Robert Crumb. There's a lot more there than just Mr. Natural.
6. ^ "R. Crumb". Davidzwirner.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
7. ^ "Fantagraphics Books - Complete Crumb Comics". Fantagraphics.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
8. ^ Palmieri, Gioia. "Update". Mineshaft Magazine. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
24. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/album/world-musette-r861093
25. ^ "World music France : une anthologie des musiques traditionnelles Enregistrements realises entre 1900 et 2009 (10 cds) - Frémeaux & Associés éditeur , La Librairie Sonore". Fremeaux.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb
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