CRUMB A CARTOONISTS LIFE

The first biography of Robert Crumbone of the most profound and influential artists of the 20th centurywhose iconic, radically frank and meticulously rendered cartoons and comics inspired generations of readers and cartoonists, from Art Spiegelman to Alison Bechdel.Robert Crumb is often credited with singlehandedly transforming the comics medium into a place for adult expression, in the process pioneering the underground comic book industry, and transforming the vernacular language of 20thcentury America into an instantly recognizable and popular aesthetic, as iconic as Walt Disney or Charles Schulz. Now, for the first time, Dan Nadel, a curator and writer specializing in comics and art, shares how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact.More than just a biography of an iconic cartoonist, Crumb is the story of a richly complex life at the forefront of both the underground and popular cultures of postwar America. Including fortyfive stunning blackandwhite images throughout and a sixteenpage color insert featuring images both iconic and obscure, Crumb spans the pressures of 1950s suburban America and Crumbs highly dysfunctional early family life; the history of comics and graphic satire; 20th century popular music; the world of the counterculture; the birth of underground comic books in 1960s San Francisco with Crumbs Zap Comix; the economic challenges and dissolution of the hippie dream; and the path Robert Crumb blazed through it all.Written with Crumbs cooperation, this fascinating, rollicking book takes in seven decades of Crumbs iconic works, including Fritz the Cat, Weirdo, and his final booklength comic of The Book of Genesis; capturing, in the process, the essence of an extraordinary artist and his times.