Media Mind: The R. Crumb Interview

Robert Crumb once proclaimed, "I'm not a star! I'm just half a star!" In addition to creating numerous comic book hits like Fritz the Cat and Keep on Truckin' Guys , Crumb is the subject of two award-winning documentaries about his life and times. Mr. Crumb, who currently hides in Southern France, took some time to speak with Amazon.com comic book editor Pat Kearney about his new book, The R. Crumb Handbook; the state of comics; and the powerful influence of U.S. media.

Amazon.com: How was working with your friend and fellow artist Peter Poplaski on this latest addition to your work?

R. Crumb: It was great working with one of my closest friends, because I know him better than I know myself. We also grew up under the same cultural influence of America in the '40s and '50s. He has been able to find greater correlation between my comics and the comics that influenced us children than I had thought of and has put together a totally imaginative and original book that I could never have written by myself.

Amazon.com: Many of our readers probably don't know this, but your wife and daughter are both comic book artists as well. Is drawing and comic books something you encouraged your daughter to explore at an early age, or did she just pick it up through osmosis?

R. Crumb: Our daughter, Sophie, started drawing naturally when she was about one and a half. Aline and I were at home drawing all the time and most of our other friends were graphic artists. So, she grew up thinking everyone drew normally. She also thought that there were no limitations to drawing. I'm not surprised that she became an artist, but we never directed her toward comics. She once asked our babysitter to draw a complicated city scene and when she said that she couldn't, she asked her if she was retarded! She was really shocked that she couldn't draw what she wanted.

There is never a lack of grotesqueness to draw.

Amazon.com: Some of your comics, especially the illustrated conversation you and your wife have in the book, seem inspired by music, in a jazz-improv sort of way. When you sit down in front of the blank page, do you have a clear idea of what you want to do, or is it more spontaneous?

R. Crumb: Aline and I always have the core of an idea when we do it together, but we are not sure how it will evolve. If one of us has a stronger idea, then that one starts and the other responds and we go back and forth. If we are sent to cover a specific event such as Cannes for The New Yorker , we take precise notes and tend to be more journalistic.

Amazon.com: The book has a ton of great color reproductions of some of the record covers you've drawn, like Janis Joplin's, for example. Describe working with Janis if you could. What other music-related work or collaborations have you done?

R. Crumb: I did the album cover for Janis Joplin because I personally liked her. She was a sad, lost soul who had been completely exploited and destroyed by the music business. At the time I did the cover, her voice had already been ruined by shrieking for years. All album and CD covers have been for bands I've played in, for friends or for music I wanted to help promote.

Amazon.com: Readers of your new book will get a CD with it as well. What can you tell us about the making of that CD and your band? Do you record your own music or have a studio? I assume analog, not digital.

R. Crumb: The CD and the book are a composition of several bands I've played in. The Cheap Suit Serenaders were recorded in a recording studio in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the French band Les Primitifs du Futur recorded in Paris. I don't have any kind of recording equipment at home and no longer perform anyway.

Amazon.com: For our aspiring comic book artists out there, what words of advice or wisdom can you give? If you don't mind, please describe to our readers a typical workday for you now in Southern France. Do you have a particular routine? Is it like many writers in that if you don't write on a daily basis, or in some scheduled way, it just doesn't happen? Do you have one place in your home that you draw?

R. Crumb: My art is very influenced by the early comics of my childhood. In the '60s I took psychedelic drugs--all of the kinds that you are talking about. In the early '70s my drawing became very chaotic, and starting in the late '70s I became interested in improving my draftsmanship and have been improving it ever since. I study the work of older artists that I greatly admire. As far as working goes I work late at night and into the wee hours of the morning when it is quiet around here. I always work at the same desk and light table in my studio. I have no special fancy equipment. When I have a deadline I work until I finish the work, and I can get into long periods of daily work. Sometimes I stop through life's distractions and I go weeks without working and get depressed. As I've become more successful and well-known it's become more difficult to get time alone.

Amazon.com: Many fans love Mr. Natural and Devilgirl. Do you have a favorite character you've created, or one that refuses to leave your brain or become irrelevant to you?

R. Crumb: Obviously most of my characters are different parts of me, so I can't get rid of any of them. Although I did kill Fritz the Cat because he became too obnoxious!

Amazon.com: You say in your book, "Psychedelic drugs broke me out of my social programming" at an early age. Can you suggest an alternative to LSD for today's youth to help break free from that same programming?

R. Crumb: Meditation!

Amazon.com: Many of your drawings have some sexually explicit and controversial material. Do you think you would have been as successful starting out in today's political climate as you were during the cultural experimentation of the '60s?

R. Crumb: I think I was very lucky to have started out in my career in the '60s as it was a period that was open to everything. It was easier for young artists to get published then. As I have said before, there are still lots of new young artists getting their work out there today, so who knows.

Amazon.com: It seems your earlier work as a teen and then into the '60s as a young man was in a part a reaction to media and the way it influences people. Now that you're older, and media has grown more pervasive in America and throughout the world, is you reaction against it just as strong or stronger, or do other things inspire you at an equally engaging level?

R. Crumb: My reaction against the media is as strong as ever. The media has gotten much more pervasive. I'm more disgusted by the human acceptance of all the crap that is thrown at us and the sheep-like behavior of many people. There is never a lack of grotesqueness to draw. The absurdity of it all continues.

Amazon.com: Mr. Crumb, thank you for talking to Amazon.com and thank you for your body of work.