Meet the man who calls his own fans “scum,” R. Crumb. Crumb first rose to prominence after the 1968 debut of Zap Comix, the first of the majorly successful “underground comix” publications. His work with legendary poet Charles Bukowski is worth taking a look.
Born Weird
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Eerie Melodies
Attention Microphones fans! The Rumpus published an interview with a one Phil Elverum on Thursday.
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Staying and Staying and Staying
"It’s interesting to me now how many lawyers I’ve published. There’s something about the retelling, the assembling of a logical arc, about planting the clues and so forth that is believable and compelling. There’s a similarity in the way your mind needs to work, too. The logical progression of the narrative, the planting clues, the revelations and also just imbuing it with the emotional truth of the moment. That’s what a fiction writer has to do." An interview with editor and literary gatekeeper Lee Boudreaux.
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The Master Carpenter
“Better to close your eyes and carry on with your own work, pretending the master carpenter doesn’t exist.” Karl Ove Knausgaard reads Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission – one of the most anticipated books of 2015. Pair with this Millions essay on Knausgaard’s My Struggle.
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Please (Don’t) Please Me
Callie Collins sits down with Emily Bell, the editor of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux Originals, in the latest issue of Midnight Breakfast. Bell also published Lucia Berlin’s recent story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women. Bell states: “The voices I publish, they’re not trying to please their readers.”
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Crumb also illustrated a mid-80’s edition of Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Following the first link, I was directed to an article titled “Cassandra Clare Created a Fantasy Realm and Aims to Maintain Her Rule” that doesn’t appear to concern R. Crumb at all (as hard as I looked for a connection).
Crumb’s drawings of old timey blues performers are profoundly well done, but I’ve been reading / looking at his material since (the often dangerous) Zap, then Weirdo and his projects with Harvey Pekar, Bukowski et al. Crumb’s line about his fans being “scum” comes out of a certain kind of darkly humorous, affectionately fatalistic, sensibility that was quite common among intellectuals of the late ’60 and ’70s. It should not be translated literally, by younger readers, to mean what they think it must mean.
Exactly right, Steven. I don’t think the people running The Millions really understand or care to know about Crumb/illustrated storytelling in general.
@Beamish13
I suspect that general disinterest has helped Crumb fly under the radar since the New Puritanism took hold in the ’80s… because who, in the Art world, crossed more lines than Crumb? Supposed bad boys like Hirst or Jeff Koons (for example) never came close to transgressions as shocking as “Angelfood…” or “Big Baby”. So it’s probably in Crumb’s best interest that he remain semi-obscure… laugh.
But let’s see how long it takes for someone to fix that link (so it actually leads to something about R. Crumb), eh?
Along with @Beamish13 and the others, I’m still waiting and hoping the link will be fixed for Crumb. And waaaaaaiiiiiting.
Sorry all — we’ve fixed the link.
Excellent! Thank you!
Erm, ” Aline is the chunky brunette who features in so much of Robert’s work…”
Chunky? “Gorgeous” would have been closer. Perhaps the Grauniad should have sent a slightly less ambivalent interviewer.