The R. Crumb Handbook [Illustré] [Anglais] [Relié]

From the mountains of Southern France where he currently lives and works, pop artist R. Crumb makes a grand entrance back to the publishing world with The R. Crumb Handbook. Part biography, part comic book, and part media critique, the latest Crumb book is a feast indeed. In addition to numerous reprints of Crumb comic hits like Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural, the book also features new works by Crumb, including a hilarious dialogue between the artist and his wife. (Both Crumb's wife and daughter are comic book artists.) Fans already familiar with Crumb’s comic book work will rejoice at the glossy reprints of Crumb oil paintings and sculptures, complete with gallery-owner narratives about working with the artist. There are also record covers reprints that Crumb has drawn over the years, as well as a CD of songs by the artist’s traditional band, R. Crumb and the Cheap Suit Serenaders. But more important, the Handbook helps provide a window into the man himself.

In fact the more you read The R. Crumb Handbook the more you start to understand Crumb is really a political cartoonist, challenging stereotypes, cultural norms, and the media. U.S. media in particular has had a powerful and profound impact on Crumb. Readers will learn what TV shows and books inspired Crumb, the state of comics in the 1960s versus today, the media’s effect on day-to-day life, and what other comics served as models for Crumb in his own work. Artists like Jack Davis, John Stanley, Carl Barks, and the late Will Eisner made powerful impressions on Crumb about what comics could achieve. Crumb offers up some interesting insight into comics during the Great Depression (e.g., Dick Tracy and Superman) and explains how many of these comics mirrored the era and encouraged readers to "fight on" even during tough times. The R. Crumb Handbook is a solid piece of work, not only giving us a glimpse into the artist, but serving as a great read for old and new fans alike. --Pat Kearney

Listen to an exclusive track from R. Crumb and the Cheap Suit Serenaders

Read an interview with R. Crumb

Exclusive Images from the R.Crumb Handbook
Spoiler Alert: View at Your Own Risk!

Build Your R. Crumb Library

The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 19	Complete Crumb Comics	Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me: Robert Crumb Letters 1958-1977
The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat	The R. Crumb Sketchbook Vol. 8: Early 1971 to Mid 1972	R. Crumb's Kafka

Crumb in Other Universes

Crumb (DVD)	The Confessions of Robert Crumb (DVD)	The R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book

Starred Review. Since the mid-'60s, cartoonist Crumb's artwork has been among the most recognizable in the annals of pop culture; his catalogue of characters like Mr. Natural and Fritz the Cat are as indelibly tied to their era as LSD and the Vietnam conflict. Crumb's true story is every bit as compelling a chronicle of his times as the provocative illustrations that emerged from his prolific pen. Many books have detailed his career, but this handsome volume is a must for the interested reader. It's a riveting autobiography that illuminates the artist's lifetime of foibles, sexual neuroses, cynicism regarding the spotlight of fame and his perceived status in the world of comics art, flavored with observations by several artists, writers and social theorists. The 400-plus pages fly by as the reader is dragged into the head of a troubled creative genius for an odyssey through a landscape of scabrous, politically incorrect caricatures of modern society that cast the bespectacled misfit in the reluctant role of a millennial Hogarth or Brueghel. Packed with photographs and some of Crumb's best known comics—including much explicit and inflammatory material—this is perhaps the most accessible and just plain fun of the multitude of Crumb histories. The book includes a CD of music by Crumb's bands, including the Cheap Suit Serenaders. (May)
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*Starred Review* With Crumb's artwork readily available in the Complete Crumb series and two books of interviews with him (both entitled R. Crumb [BKL My 15 04]) out there, too, this chunky new volume may seem supererogatory. But it is so handsome and well produced (including a CD of selections from Crumb's sidereal career as an American old-timey and French bals musette musician) that it constitutes the ideal introduction to the influential cartoonist. The eight chapters, which read as if straight from the horse's mouth, are reflective and philosophical more than strictly autobiographical. As in the comics in which he portrays himself, Crumb tries to explain his life and art, and if he often trails off to "I dunno," his pessimistic skepticism sounds out loud and clear. The sixties sex-and-drugs revolution may have "liberated" him to portray his most embarrassing sex fantasies, but he doesn't think that sea change in mores was really all that good. His most perverse stories, some of which reappear here, contain the heat as well as the hilarity of satire. Besides those, a staggering wealth of his other art, dating from childhood to last year, and many photos, personal and public, occupy perhaps two-thirds of the pages. The text is almost typo-free, and the artwork reproductions are almost all immaculate, though those reduced from comic-book size make eye-challenging reading. Quite an accomplishment. Ray Olson
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The only underground cartoonist to be accepted by the fine art world, the R.Crumb Handbook is divided into the four enemies of man: FEAR, CLARITY, POWER, OLD AGE. Working with his old drinking buddy and co-author Pete Poplaski, the four chapters are easily digested. With over 400 pages of cartoons and photographs, Crumb’s often controversially-regarded views toward Disneyland, growing up in America, hippie love, art galleries, and turning 60 are revealed. By tracing his development as a cartoonist from his tormented childhood in the 1940s through to his coming of age as an artist in the psychedelic revolution of the 1960s, Robert Crumb visually treats us to the pressures and influences that the modern mass media has on human consciousness, and includes over 80 personal photographs, and 300 images taken from personal sketchbooks and comic books, as well as fine art from museums. For the serious student of late capitalist culture and the thousands of Crumb enthusiasts everywhere this book is indispensable.

Robert Crumb is the only underground cartoonist to be recognized by the fine art world. Robert Crumb once proclaimed: "I’m not a Star! I’m just half a Star!" He is the creator of Fritz the Cat, Zap Comix, Mr Natural, Devil Girl and the Keep on Truckin’ Guys. He is the subject of two award-winning documentaries about his life and times. Robert hides in the South of France.