The R. Crumb Handbook [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

R Crumb (Author), Peter Poplaski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2005

This collection of original cartoons and never-before-published work takes readers on a unique journey through the life and times of one of the 20th century's most notorious and influential counter-culture artists.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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

From Publishers Weekly

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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Product Details

• Hardcover: 440 pages
• Publisher: M Q Publications (April 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1840727160
• ISBN-13: 978-1840727166
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.8 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #685,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Philadelphia, R. Crumb is the author of numerous comic works and one of the pioneers of underground comics. His books include Kafka, The Complete Crumb Comics (17 volumes), The R. Crumb Sketchbook (10 volumes), R. Crumb Draws the Blues, The Book of Mr. Natural, The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb, and many more. He lives in the south of France with his wife, the artist Aline Kominsky-Crumb.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brutally Honest; Look @ R Crumb, See Yourself!, April 22, 2005

By 

D. Sean Brickell (gorgeous Virginia Beach, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The R. Crumb Handbook (Hardcover)

Forget comix. R. Crumb is amongst the most brutally honest writiers in any genre, ever! What is more, when we look at his dead-on observations of himself, what we really see are universal characteristics about ourselves. If you laugh at Mr. Crumb, you better make doggone sure you ain't taking your-own-self too seriously.

There isn't anyway to begin describing this book. Each page jumps up and slaps your around equally. Lots of our old favorites are included, but the thing that is most vital to me as a reader are the solutions Mr. Crumb proposes. Like it or no, he has a keen sense of life's fairness, inequities, balance and absurdity.

Anyone can bitch, few can propose workable answers. Therein lies the depth of Mr. Crumb's thinking, albeit masterfully integrated within the fabric of highly personalized and skillful artistic abilities.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful (but not for the easily offended), April 27, 2005

By 

John E. Davidson (Purley) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The R. Crumb Handbook (Hardcover)

R. Crumb is a famous underground comic, who in recent years has been elevated to cultural icon. Crumb's work is an exposition of his psyche - sometimes autobiographical, sometimes concentrating on his obsessions with sex and large, powerful women, sometimes, rather disconcertingly, both. His work divides critics - some hail him as a satirical genius: he has been compared to literary satirists Rabelais and Swift; and by art critics to Breughel and Goya. Others view his work as misogynistic pornography, socially degrading, emotionally immature, racist and sexist. There is merit in both views, I can certainly understand why some find his work offensive. However, I love his work and tend to agree with the former view, even if I do find some of the more lavish praise tends towards hyperbole. I suspect that Crumb does not really buy all of the hype - for example the book contains two well-known cartoons, both self-portraits: one with the line "Broigal it ain't", the other with the line "Yeah, but is it art".

This book is part biography including numerous photographs and commentary from critics, part collection of cartoons and sketches with together with a fantastic CD of some of Crumb's music (rooted firmly in the 1920s - an interesting mixture of blues & bluegrass played mainly on the banjo).

The cartoons amazing, the music CD brilliant (to be honest the CD on its own is worth the price of the whole package) and the biography is very interesting (personally I found the photographs the most disturbing part of the book - the picture of Crumb's wife Aileen giving him a piggy back while striking a `muscle' pose is too close to the imagery of the drawings for comfort). This is a wonderful introduction to Crumb, the man and his work, but even readers already very familiar with Crumb's work will find much to enjoy here.

A final note: if you have not seen it then I recommend the wonderful documentary Crumb, directed by Crumb's friend Terry Zwigoff.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect bedside book. Entertaining, dip-in-able and yeah...somewhat raunchy too. Crumb is a remarkable artist., January 17, 2006

By 

D. Stuart "Researcher at Kudos" (Auckland NZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The R. Crumb Handbook (Hardcover)

The R. Crumb Handbook is a superb collection of his art is a fine record of his lifetime body of work. Crumb himself writes frankly about his childhood, his youthful fascination with comics and with early blues, and his voyage since the 1950s through drugs, the counterculture and his rise to fame (and concurrent depression) and his subsequent rehabilitation mentally, emotionally, as well as professionally in the world of serious art.

Crumb is by turns flaky, bemused, gutsy, sentimental and always 100% honest - and this beautifully produced volume helps us get to know and understand the complete life of this man: a true outsider who touches our collective inner nerve.

His essays make great reading, and he illustrates these with samples of his work that suddenly take on new meaning. I never realised the degree to which his Keep on Truckin' character became a millstone around his neck.

This book is perfect bedside material. Good for dipping into, and as our librarian belatedly found (below), somewhat raunchy too. I was given this volume as a gift, and it has not only entertained, it has filled in a juicy piece of my cultural upbringing. Robert Crumb is a hero, and icon even, but above all he's an honest reporter of our human condition. What a unique and illuminating book.