As the founder ofunderground comics“Movement” in the 1960s, R. Crumb Either they are respected as pioneers in satirizing American culture and its excesses, or they are condemned as purveyors of painfully outdated sexist and racist stereotypes to young people. Crumb doesn’t apologize. He continues to work and his fans are grateful. He reflects his own sexual obsessions and outsider relationships with black culture into an intriguing vision of this country that echoes the obsessions of comic artists/authors such as: I have reflected the same. zap and weirdo.
But Crumb’s work also features drug use, pop culture references, oversexed men chasing skirts, women with very specific body types (and always sexually available), and all kinds of creepy It’s permeated with underground characters, but there’s another side to it. It’s an almost sentimental attachment to purist Americana. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century. Most notably, Crumb is both an antiquarian and an interpreter of old-time music such as country, jazz, ragtime, and blues. One of my favorite books of his is a collection of the series of trading cards he created. R. Crumb’s Blues, Jazz, and Country Heroesa set of illustrations paying homage to folk musicians, accompanied by a CD of music carefully selected by Crumb.
Crumb’s love for simpler times goes beyond just an aficionado’s passion. It is the flip side of his satire, a genre that cannot thrive as current criticism without a corresponding vision of the Golden Age. For Crumb, that era was the pre-World War II, pre-industrial, rural era, as he described it: interviewA time when “people could still express themselves.” His experience with the slant of American popular culture was decidedly less than idyllic. Written by Ian Bluma new york book review:
Like his brothers, Crumb absorbed the television and comic book culture of the 1950s. howdy doody, donald duck, roy rogers, little luluetc. In the 1960s, while using LSD, Crumb thought of his mind as a “trash can for mass media images and input.” I spent my entire childhood absorbing a lot of crap, and my personality and mind were saturated with it. Only God knows if it will affect you physically! ”
Crumb’s comic art is described in almost therapeutic terms as emptying the “trash can” of the unconscious, but his more sober, nostalgic illustrations, the “bullshit” of childhood media exposure, are ” is balanced by the counterbalance. Some might think of Crumb’s consumption of old music and film as a kind of cultural health food diet. One of his most popular nostalgic works is A Short History of America (1979). This is a series of panels showing the transition from open countryside to the town settlements brought by the railways, and then to severe overdevelopment in the late twenties. century. The only text other than the title (and the proliferation of billboards and street signs) is the coda at the bottom right of the last panel: “What’s next?!!!” Above (above), you can see an animated comic set to an old piano piece. Another apt version of his vision of the country’s growth (or ruin) is the one in color, scored by Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi.” View the entire series of images here and hereand be sure to check out Crumb’s Three epilogue guesses About what happens next.
Note: An earlier version of this post first appeared on the site in 2013.
Related content:
R. Crumb tells how he quit LSD in the ’60s and quickly discovered his artistic style
Robert Crumb depicts Philip K. Dick’s infamous hallucinatory encounter with God (1974)
Here’s how R. Crumb illustrated Genesis: faithful and unique illustrations of all 50 chapters
R. Crumb’s Blues, Jazz and Country Heroes Contains 114 illustrations of artists’ favorite musicians.
josh jones I’m a writer and musician based in Durham, North Carolina. please follow him @jdmagness
