Anyone Here Like Artist R. Crumb Like I Do?

W

Wyatt Burp

Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2008
Messages
6,788
Reaction score
17,741
Location
Northern California
I was going through my forty five year old comic book collection and among them found my adults only R. Crumb underground comics. About eight of them. I also have many books of his crammed with comix. He is my favorite artist of all time and I read them all for old times sake. This guy influenced my drawing far more than I realized reading them again. I know this is major antisocial stuff, but anyone else like this guy in your wild youth?
 
Register to hide this ad
R. Crumb

Wyatt Burp said:
I was going through my forty five year old comic book collection and among them found my adults only R. Crumb underground comics. About eight of them. I also have many books of his crammed with comix. He is my favorite artist of all time and I read them all for old times sake. This guy influenced my drawing far more than I realized reading them again. I know this is major antisocial stuff, but anyone else like this guy in your wild youth?
Click to expand...

R. Crumb = greatest cartoon artist AND psychiatric.

There is a documentary on him.

He is very normal compared to his brothers, one of whom commit suicide who showed great promise as a cartoonist but went crazy.

I also have a big Crumb picture book about 5/8" thick of his cartoons and comics. I even still have a few old 'ZAP' comix around somewhere.

BTW Remember the 'Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers'. I've still got some and my wife and I feed each other lines and laugh about it.

"All my money, ALL my money!?"

'Come on you pedestrians, shake a leg!!"

"These must be the keys!"

And......

"You Dum Dum, you just offed the garbage man!"
 
Last edited:
Oh hell yeah! I was a big fan of his. I always liked how there was so many things going on in each frame.
 
A couple of years ago, I got the cd of his life at the library. very strange but as most have said a very funny cartoonist.
 
Good post Wyatt. Brings back memories of reading those Zap Comic books with characters like "Nurse Diesel", "The Snoid from Cheboygan", and others that I can't remember right now.
I used to read those while holed up in my room with a lava lamp, black light and posters while listening to the "Firesign Theatre".
Glad I never inhaled.
 
I didn't recognize R. Crumb's name, but I certainly recognized his work. I read the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers a long time ago; I wonder what happened to the copies I had?
 
moosedog said:
Good post Wyatt. Brings back memories of reading those Zap Comic books with characters like "Nurse Diesel", "The Snoid from Cheboygan", and others that I can't remember right now.
I used to read those while holed up in my room with a lava lamp, black light and posters while listening to the "Firesign Theatre".
Glad I never inhaled.
Click to expand...
I didn't have a lava lamp, but I had these lights shaped like speaker boxes that plugged into my cheap little stereo and they flashed to the music. They were pretty cool actually. This was the early 70's. This doodle I did while talking to my son on line in Afghanistan might not show a Crumb influence on the surface, but I feel it.

 
The Big Brother and the Holding Co. cover was a classic. I always thought many of the girls at Greatful Dead concerts looked like his models.
 
I was hooked on all the Zap Comics back in the 70's. R. Crumb is a genious, I got a big kick out of all his characters from Mr. Natural to Suzi Creamcheese. I remember one cartoon that had a couple of 17th century pirates time warped into the 70's present sitting on Harleys blasting down the road...very graphic. I know an attorney with the last name of Crumb, I asked him if he might be a relative of R. Crumb because the family is from the Pacific N.W. He told me that he was his first cousin and that he was always a little weird. I believe he said that Crumb is living in France and doing well. I just read his book on Genesis and it is hilarious...look it up Genesis in Pictures...you won't be able to put it down.
 
Kinman said:
I was hooked on all the Zap Comics back in the 70's. R. Crumb is a genious, I got a big kick out of all his characters from Mr. Natural to Suzi Creamcheese. I remember one cartoon that had a couple of 17th century pirates time warped into the 70's present sitting on Harleys blasting down the road...very graphic. I know an attorney with the last name of Crumb, I asked him if he might be a relative of R. Crumb because the family is from the Pacific N.W. He told me that he was his first cousin and that he was always a little weird. I believe he said that Crumb is living in France and doing well. I just read his book on Genesis and it is hilarious...look it up Genesis in Pictures...you won't be able to put it down.
Click to expand...
My second favorite artist was S. Clay Wilson who was in Zap about the 4th issue. He did these pirate and bikers in extreme cluttered up chaos that was brilliant. He was/is a great story teller. If I described his comics I'd be ostracized from this forum. Kinman, are you sure you're pirate bikers weren't his stuff? Google "S Clay Wilson" then images. If so you'll know it instantly.This is insane stuff.
I really felt like I'd be alone on all this, but it feels great that you guys appreciate these comic books, too, R. Crumb specifically.
 
Last edited:
Ya know I think your right about that, it was just one of the stories from Zap comics that I thought was great...got my people mixed up.
That was'nt Crumbs style, way too much detail. I remember the weird eyeball comics that you must have had to have recently dropped a tab of acid to be able to figure out...Wierd stuff...but Crumb and the rest were really intertaining and full of laughs, not very politically correct by any means.

I can still see the pirates on the bikes, one pirate says "What manner of craft is this that propels us like the very wind." A rat biker rides alongside and smacks one of the pirates with a beer can saying "Eat a can, lugnut." I used to laugh to myself reading those things
 
Last edited:
Hey wyatt, my wife is a artist of a different type but I just showed her your doodle above and it cracked her up! She draws people realisticly and said she doesnt have that type imagination.
 
feralmerril said:
Hey wyatt, my wife is a artist of a different type but I just showed her your doodle above and it cracked her up! She draws people realisticly and said she doesnt have that type imagination.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I just drew one or two characters each day as I talked to my kid. People make the mistake thinking I think about this stuff. But it don't work that way. I draw a nose. Then and eye. And so on. Each feature is not planned out. I just make a consiuous (??) effort not to duplicate anything. Or try to. That's all the thinking involved in this.
 
I lived in Berkley when Zap hit my world.

Pretty much everyone looked like a character in the comic.

Pure genius and a really great artist.

1968 was definitely an altered time.;)

Mr. Burp, these things are roots for many who would never let on..........but you had to be there.
 
Last edited:
Loved 'em. All the one's I had in the 70's are long gone; I remember when a complete set was released in the 90's, but I didn't have the money for them then, and still don't.
 
moosedog said:
Good post Wyatt. Brings back memories of reading those Zap Comic books with characters like "Nurse Diesel", "The Snoid from Cheboygan", and others that I can't remember right now.
I used to read those while holed up in my room with a lava lamp, black light and posters while listening to the "Firesign Theatre".
Glad I never inhaled.
Click to expand...

Moose- oh my God, thanks for the flashback! Now I have to dig out the old iPod and rack up "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Pass Me the Pliers" or "The Futher Adventures of Nick Danger."

Inhale? What...
 
pharmer said:
Inhale? I can't remember. I plead the 5th on the 70's and 80's. Crumb was twisted, and he fit right in. This is recent as in last Christmas. Joe
Click to expand...
Just look at that shading! I have a couple newer Crumb compilations but have never seen this one. Look at all the details there like that bookcase.
I was a freshman in 1972 and my friends would cut school and pay a quarter to ride the bus from Hayward High across the bay to S.F. We'd go to Coit Tower and sit on the cliff looking down on the wharfs where my dad sold papers as a kid. And we'd always stop in this head shop where I'd get an adult comic book. We's walk past Attorney Melvin Belli's rustic office and look inside what looked like a dark antique shop. Sometimes he's be sitting there at his desk. This was just post Zodiac Killer days. I'd also drag my friends into the San Francisco Gun Exchange and drool over all the brand new Colt SAAs and the clerks would always let me handle them. Then off to crazy loud and vibrant China Town we're we transported to another country altogether. I refuse to say more on the grounds that I might tend to incriminate myself. Those were fun times.
 
R. Crumb's big mistake was the strip he did featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Disney wasn't amused and filed lawsuits that kept Crumb impoverished for years. (At least that's how I recall it.)

Crumb once said he never made a dime off the "Keep On Truckin'" merchandise that was everywhere for a while.

But yeah, Wyatt, thanks for the memories! For a couple of years either side of 1970 comics by R. Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, and others were all over the apartment, along with other stuff--remember Slow Death Comics? Now that was a depressing rag suited to the mood of the early '70s.
 
Loved him then, Love him now...

Funny coincidence! On my desk right now is his Illustrated Book of Genesis. Has there ever been a more entertaining way to "read" the Bible?

I still see his newer work from time to time in the New Yorker. If you are a fan, you MUST see the 1994 documentary "Crumb". I also am a fan of his musical ventures performed under the name "R. Crumb and the Cheap Suit Serenaders".
 
When I returned from active duty in 1970, and went back to my old office job, there was Zap Comix No. 0 still in my desk drawer! I sold it to some fellow in LA who was looking for it. I knew an English girl who worked for Belli for a short time. Things in that office were much too weird for her and she left. SF Gun Exchange, what a great place! I used to hit the place almost every lunch hour!
 
Wyatt Burp said:
Just look at that shading! I have a couple newer Crumb compilations but have never seen this one. Look at all the details there like that bookcase.
I was a freshman in 1972.
Click to expand...
Amazon has it, qualifies for free shipping usually. I had pretty much flunked my first year of college in 1972 so I hit the road. I was in Berkeley in 1972, having hitchhiked 8,000 miles from NJ. Meet some strange characters along the way. Different times indeed. Joe
 
This thread would be better with pictures. Do you think the Big Silverback and the Mods would mind if we put up a few pages of the S. Clay Wilson story about that pirate with the periodontal condition? Captain Something-gums, I believe? :)
 
I was stationed on Treasure Island in 67/68 and I got to see all this stuff. On my first day on leave in San Francisco a buddy and I saw a couple hold hands and jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn't want to get kicked out of the Navy so I didn't do the drugs. I did do lots of beer at the Presidio though and got a tattoo from Lyle Tuttle before he became Tatoo Artist of the Stars. I got my initials "CRS" which probably could have represented a lot of folks from that era. Went to a few wild Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane concerts but forget the name of the auditorium they played at. Spent a lot of time people watching at Haight-Ashberry and still have a few buttons purchased on the street for a quarter. "Melts In Your Mind Not In Your Hands" Some of the knock out gorgeous girls from Berkley had an interesting way of supplementing their income. I almost got beat up by a woman on a cable car when I was flirting with her girlfriend. I saw a guy tearing pages out of a Bible at Powell Square and to this day I think it was Charlie Manson. I spent a lot of time at the San Francisco Gun Exchange. I bought a broom handled Mauser there for $30.00 that came up missing in one of my many moves. I collected a lot of the underground literature because if was different from anything I had ever seen and I liked the artwork. San Francisco was (and still is) a very strange place back then. It was quite a shock (that I got used to quick) to a country boy from South Mississippi.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

chief38
I have yet to actually see, examine or shoot an FN Reflex. Has anyone here had the opportunity to do so?
Replies
4
Views
465
much ado
M
chief38
Loctite and guns - do they mix? This subject keeps coming up - hence another thread for those who wonder.
2 3
Replies
74
Views
4K
JMD999
J
Burnston
An Ode to Ranch Horses, People, and Dogs
Replies
6
Views
1K
Old 44 Guy
O
B
Photos I Recall From Catalogs/Marketing/Ads From Years Back
Replies
20
Views
2K
6518John
6518John
RM Vivas
NYPD - M&P #S812894 - How I Research The NYPD Guns
Replies
22
Views
2K
dobegrant
dobegrant

Latest posts

Back
Top