Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb is a notable American cartoonist and comic book artist recognized for his influential and controversial work in the underground comics movement, particularly during the late 1960s and 1970s. He began his career in the early 1960s at the American Greeting Card Company and later gained prominence for his distinctive style that blends humor with explicit content. Crumb's creations, including characters like Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural, often challenge mainstream societal norms and portray complex themes related to sexuality, consumerism, and identity. His work has sparked significant debate, earning both acclaim as a genius and criticism for its perceived obscenity and misogyny. Crumb has published over twenty comics and has been involved in notable obscenity trials that reflect the contentious nature of his art. Despite mixed reactions to his work, he is celebrated for his role in shaping American countercultural art. In 1994, a documentary directed by Terry Zwigoff further explored Crumb's life and artistry, highlighting the dichotomy of his talent and the controversies that surround his personal views.
Subject Terms
Robert Crumb
Identification: American graphic novelist
Significance: Crumb’s work has been attacked as pornographic and obscene
The son of a career U.S. Marine, whom his sons describe as an “overbearing tyrant,” Crumb began working as an artist at the American Greeting Card Company in Ohio in 1962 and also worked as an artist for the Topps Company in New York City. He then began to do freelance portraits and cartoons in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Since then he has published under many different names: Crud, Crumarums, Brumbum, Crumski, Crum the Bum, Crunk, and others.
Crumb has more than twenty publications to his name. His comic-book art has been both praised as the work of a genius and condemned as obscene. His cartoons are typically sexually explicit and graphically violent. His Zap Comix: No. 4 and his Snatch series were the subject of obscenity trials and were removed from circulation on both the East and West coasts, as well as in Britain. According to his defenders, Crumb is a hero of imaginative freedom. He attacks mainstream values, draws things so that they look cute, while using them to attack mainstream values or to tell offensive stories. His most famous creations are Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, and Angelfood McSpade. He also created the well-known “Keep on Truckin’” logo.
Crumb’s Angelfood McSpade character is a sex symbol who represents the hidden desires of white civilization. His Whiteman represents a stereotypical uptight businessman. Mr. Natural is a capitalist guru; and Flakey Foont, Natural’s bumbling disciple, is a hopelessly repressed city-dweller seeking easy solutions to the world’s most complex problems who is repeatedly used and abused by Mr. Natural.
In Crumb’s “Ooga Booga” strip he initially seemed to denigrate African Americans, but this was merely a satire on black stereotypes. Crumb feels that if his art displays a deep seated racism or sexism, it is because such feelings are deep seated in the white male American psyche.
The popularity of Crumb’s Fritz the Cat is due to the film of the same name, directed by Ralph Bakshi. Ironically, Crumb was so displeased with the film that he waged a successful legal battle to have his name removed from its credits. Still, Crumb’s work has had an impact on changing American mores. Millions of baby boomers remember his hilarious, obscene, psychedelic satires, so-called underground comic books during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
In 1994 a close friend of Crumb, Terry Zwigoff, directed a documentary film about his life that was honored by critics as the best documentary of the year. The film looks over Crumb’s shoulder as he works, drawing on table napkins, bus tickets, and whatever is available. Zwigoff interviews Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes, who sees Crumb as a modern successor to Pieter Brueghel, Francisco José Goya, and Honoré Daumier. Two women are also interviewed: Deirdre English, a former editor of Mother Jones, and cartoonist Trina Robbins. They praise Crumb’s talent while deploring his evident hostility toward women. Crumb’s work does not intend to evoke sexual arousal or hatred, but to laugh at the expense of hypocrisy or political righteousness.