R. Crumb: Naughty American
JANUARY 16, 2008
SAN DIEGO (TNA) – There are naughty Americans, and then there’s Robert Crumb, brilliant illustrator and brackish pervert (or maybe it’s the other way around). He’s a rare naughty American in absentia. The spindly, self-described nerd behind underground ‘60s comics such as “Snatch” and “Big Ass Comics” – works that plumbed the depths of American culture, along with Crumb’s infantile sexuality – has had enough of this country.
He came, he sketched, he dry-heaved.
In 1991, disgusted by the America he chronicled – the growing materialism, an increasingly vapid pop culture – as well as his own fame, Crumb sold off six sketchbooks to pay for a villa in the South of France. He, along with his wife and daughter, packed their belongings and split: the Crumbian version of “That’s all folks!”
© Sony Pictures R. Crumb
Few naughty Americans get to just walk away. Most have to run. And Crumb is lucky, because in today’s climate of political correctness and hyper-litigiousness, he would have been shamed and sued up to his bulging eyeballs.
Before Don Imus slinked off the air for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “a bunch of nappy-headed hoes,” there were Crumb comics. One titled “Angelfood McSpade,” for example, offered up a caricature of an African tribal woman, tuft of hair on her head, rings around her neck, and enlarged lips.
And Imus looked like a Freedom Rider compared to Crumb’s phony cartoon advertisement in which a boy asks his mother if he can have canned “Nigger Hearts” for dinner.
But perhaps the most controversial – and reckless – would be “When The Niggers Take Over America,” an apocalyptic vision of black men as jack-booted fascists who subjugate white folks, slaughtering the men and raping the women. He intended it as satire, … but then again, so did Imus.
© Robert Crumb A Crumb self portrait
Said Crumb of the piece in a 1999 interview, “That is definitely one of the most mean-spirited strips I ever did about the American culture.”
Crumb was gentler on Jews, but not by much. He created “Dale Steinberger: The Jewish Cowgirl,” described as “Nobody’s Yiddish mama,” and drew several unflattering sketches of Jews, including one of a decrepit, palsied man crying, “20% interest!!! Oy vey!” The Anti-Defamation League wasn’t likely to call, but Crumb made an enemy of the mainstream.
His look at women and sex was equally controversial. Many Crumb comics depicted weak little men and hulking women engaging in wanton, contortionist sex. The women, all bubble butts and bullet tits with erect nipples, alternately serviced and tortured unctuous Gollum-like males. Crumb, who has a thing for dominant, big-boned women, often gleefully drew himself into the comics.
For some, his comics went too far. In August 1969, the feds busted comic store owners on obscenity charges for selling a Crumb comic book called “Joe Blow,” and the state of New York banned its sale. The reason was a single-panel cartoon called “The Family That Lays Together Stays Together,” showing family members having sex with each other. Dad has sex with Mom, brother has sex with sis, … and the family dog drills baby sister from behind.
Other cartoons illustrated psychopathic violence and interspecies predation long before Itchy and Scratchy came on the scene. For the cover of “Arcade,” in 1975, Crumb drew an Amazonian woman with a hippo head devouring cute, anthropomorphic bunnies. In another example, Crumb doodled “Alien With Rectal Probe,” a napkin sketch of three aliens about to violate a naked man with a pinecone-shaped device.
© Robert Crumb Cover of "Arcade," 1975
“Hold ‘im!” one of the aliens yells.
“He’s not going anywhere,” says a second.
The man, agitated, cries, “You lousy little Muther-fuckers!! … You rotten little FUCKERS!!”
“Heh heh,” laughs a third alien.
Most of Crumb’s characters either appear wretched or destitute, suffering in existential ways that contrasted starkly with the wholesome Disney comics of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
“Crumb brought ‘trash’ art into the cultural mainstream and made it respectable,’” wrote The New York Times Magazine in 1972. “There is an increasing strain of self-mockery, metaphysical anguish, cynicism and despair over the human condition.”
Susan Goodrick, who interviewed Crumb for a 1974 article, aptly sums up the motivation of Crumb characters: “[Crumb] sends his characters looking for meaning in life.”
“They try everything: sex, drugs, vegetarianism, religion, spiritualism, politics, despair, gurus, and soaking in bathtubs. But they generally only get ripped off, a case of V.D., or badly wrinkled skin for their trouble.”
Crumb’s world purview can in part be traced to his family life, which has been variously characterized as dysfunctional, joyless, and gothic. His father, a Marine Corps sergeant, moved the family from town to town, gradually disengaging himself from Robert and his older brother Charles, who preferred drawing comics to playing sports or rough-housing.
Charles, obsessed with the 1950 movie “Treasure Island,” conscripted Robert to draw “Treasure Island” comics at an early age, to the detriment of the latter’s personal development. Only in adulthood did Robert learn the true reason for Charles’ obsession for “Treasure Island”: a strong sexual attraction to child actor Bobby Driscoll.
Charles would become increasingly addled and abusive towards Robert, admitting in the 1994 documentary “Crumb” that he contemplated stabbing Robert in his sleep when they were teens.
Crumb in turn hazed his younger brother Maxon, who developed his own perverse outlook on sexuality. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Maxon was arrested several times for molesting women.
As a young man, Crumb married. His misanthropy lay below the surface as he contributed comics to small publications and worked as an illustrator for American Greetings in Cleveland. LSD changed all that.
In June 1965, Crumb began dropping acid. His cartoons became darker, more mischievous, adopting a cynical view of American society and sexuality. Many of the characters for which he would become famous – including “Mr. Natural,” the charlatan guru with a long beard, and “Angelfood McSpade” – resulted from weekend acid trips.
Crumb cites comics from the 1950s, such as Mad magazine, Pogo – even Nancy -- as creative influences. Art critics have gone farther back, though, comparing his work to that of Hieronymus Bosch, the 15th century Dutch painter noted for grotesque depictions of human suffering at the hands of demons and beasts.
The LSD proved good for creativity, but bad for productivity. In October 1965, Crumb took a potent hit of acid and spent the next seven months in a “fugue” state, only to be jolted back to activity when he took a second powerful hit in April 1966.
Crumb wasn’t religious, but he was devoutly impulsive. Indeed, impulse appears to be the only devotion from which he has never wavered. It drove his art and often dictated his personal life.
© Sony Pictures
In 1967, Crumb drove off to San Francisco with two strangers while on his lunch break in a Cleveland bar. As he tells it, in a matter of minutes, he drained his beer, jotted a farewell note to his wife, and stole off to the West Coast for better drugs and free love.
And addressing his creative impulses in a 1999 interview, he asked, “Why do I feel compelled to draw these twisted sexual imaginings in the first place? Why do I even THINK them?”
Later in life, he may have found the answer. In a 2002 interview with D.K. Holm, he admits, “I was a punk, trying to shock people, trying to, you know, stir things up, like an obnoxious guy at a party who does something stupid such as putting ice cubes down the back of some woman’s dress.”
These days, Crumb lives a quiet life in France with his wife Aline, occasionally putting up with visits from fans and reporters. According to Aline, the two have an open relationship. She suspects he has a girlfriend, but isn’t inclined to ask him about it.
Aline also finds amusement in a scrapbook her husband keeps. The book contains photos of Crumb-style women – strong and with big butts. In a 2005 The Guardian article, Crumb pulled out the scrapbook for a photo of his archetypal woman, Serena Williams.
“This butt is just bionic,” he raved about Williams, wearing a tight black dress. “It’s beyond anything. Imagine having access to that?”
Crumb still lacks impulse control, and he’s unlikely to ever mute his urges. That bold denial of self-restraint, after all, has made him wealthy and famous, and gotten him stoned and laid more than any greeting card illustrator. For that, Robert Crumb is inducted into The Naughty American Hall of Fame.
--Larry Knowles is the Associate Editor of The Naughty American. He can be reached at lgkiii@thenaughtyamerican.com
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