Robert Crumb - The Pocket Essential Guide by Holm D. K

Author:Holm, D. K. [Holm, D. K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Essentials
Published: 2005-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

6. Post-Crumb, The Later Years Of Fruitful Harvest (1994–2005)

Robert Crumb was taken by surprise twice in his life.

The first surprise came not long after he began publishing his comics when he was deemed the ‘dean,’ the ‘father,’ the ‘grand old man’ of underground comics. Thanks to this status, he was assailed by fanboys, publishers, movie people, lawyers, and tax investigators.

The second surprise came 25 years later with release of the documentary Crumb . The fame Crumb’s early appearances in the media brought him was startling. But the second round of fame was staggering. The film, Crumb told Mercier, ‘escalated my notoriety, my fame hugely, way beyond what it was before... I was completely surprised.’ Fortunately, he was in France by the time the film came out.

It’s hard to get a straight story as to when Crumb moved to France, or why. Mercier says the move occurred 1990, but he was still signing introductions to The Complete Crumb Comics from Winters, California in that year. Meanwhile, a Dirty Laundry collaboration between Crumb and his wife, dated 1992, mentions that they moved to France a year earlier.

The main impetus for the move seems to have come from Aline, but Crumb himself (after his worries as to how his 78-record collection would weather a transatlantic trip finally abated) seems to be have acclimated himself to rural France, with its village life, aperitifs, and walks in the nearby woods. The movie Crumb ends with their farewell to America.

In Crumb , Terry Zwigoff paid curious homage to Crumb’s angst and universally recognizable drawing style. Just over two hours long, Crumb is a profile of the artist in extremis . Though seemingly meandering, the film actually has a fascinating and coherent narrative line.

Zwigoff introduces the viewer to Crumb in his sanctum sanctorum , the small studio behind his house in Winters, California, listening to old blues 78s. He follows Crumb to his Mom’s house in Philadelphia, where the viewer meets Charles. Zwigoff catches Crumb on Market Street in San Francisco, one of the places where Crumb likes to sketch. He shows Crumb talking to his brother Maxon, then being interviewed by a reporter, and enjoying an uncomfortable photo shoot for Leg Show magazine. Finally, Zwigoff shows the artist packing up his possessions for the move to France (which is ‘slightly less evil than the United States’). Zwigoff and his editor, Victor Livingston, cunningly arranged the footage that came out of a lengthy shoot into a logical, orderly journey into the mind of an artist. As Zwigoff bird-dogs Crumb, he – and the viewer – learns fascinating, amusing, and touching things about the man, his art, his family, and his sexuality. It’s a Crumb fanatic’s dream.

What first time viewers may be surprised at is how much the notoriously misanthropic Crumb laughs. Though it might be nervous laughter, especially when his sex life is under analysis, nevertheless it is a happy laughter.

There’s one thing Zwigoff doesn’t tell us, however, and that’s why Crumb has become such a cult figure.

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