CRUMB

[Sepiatone]

 

TCM UNDERGROUND showed this documentary last night(or this morning?).

 

 

Robert Crumb was an artist/cartoonist who was iconic in the late '60's. I myself, once boasted a mighty stack of "ZAP COMIX". A unique individual who seemed to have come from a troubling childhood environment and stoicly lives within his personal principles, his style of art/cartooning was the influence for many who came after, including GARY LARSON of "THE FAR SIDE" fame. His two brothers were shown to have had an equal talent for art and cartooning, but lacked the self discipline to go anywhere with it.

 

 

At the time this doc. was made(1995), Crumb was shown to be highly critical of then modern popular culture. Voicing the same dismay with it that I, too, voiced at the time. But HE moved to France to get away from it all.

 

 

An irratic person with an odd sense of integrity, Crumb had plenty of opportunities to really cash in with his talent, and turned down many lucrative offers feeling they jeopardized that integrity.

 

 

Surely, a level of integrity that is sorely missing this day and age.

 

 

Sepiatone

 

 

[Sepiatone]

 

My guess is the whole experience with the brothers was so unpleasant that they refused to be a part of the documentary in an effort to keep it behind them.

 

 

Incidentally, I STILL have a poster-sized copy of "STONED AGIN!" hanging on a wall in my house!

 

 

One funny part of the film(out of several) was when several other cartoonists claimed Crumb, by the way he depicted African Americans in his cartoons, was a RACIST. And then Crumb declaring that the only people who called him racist because of them were WHITE LIBERALS. Several black guys I knew then who SAW those cartoons knew where Crumb was coming from and thought them funny.

 

 

Sepiatone

 

 

[rewrite]

I had one of those "Stoned Agin!' posters on my wall in high school. Don't know what became of it. Great moment years later when I spotted one on the wall of the solders' hangout in "Platoon."