Untitled, 1966 24 CAT
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PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS FRENCH EDITION © Harry Benson: pp. 94, 95 © Pere Berresfjord: p. 139 GRAPHIC DESIGN (bottom) Susanna Shannon + Philippe De Gobert: p. 77 Catherine Houbart © / design department Terry Gilliam: p. 37 (top right)© EDITORIAL COORDINATION Sébastien Gokalp: Anne-Julie Esparceil pp.© 190, 191 Gary Groth: p. 37 EDITORIAL SECRETARY (bottom© right) Catherine Ojalvo for French texts © Denis Kitchen: p. 138 © John Lautemann: pp 54, Susan Power 79, 177 for English texts Photo Courtesy Paul Morris and David Zwirner, New TRANSLATIONS York: pp. 79, 99, 117, 121, John Tittensor, 124, 126-128, 130, 134-135, from French to English (all 137, 148-156, 158-159, 162-163, texts with the exception of 166-175 (select), 178, 185-188 Todd Hignite’s) (top left) Regional Contemporary Art© Museum of Languedoc- Roussillon in Sérignan / ENGLISH EDITION Photo Pierre Schwartz: p. 166 EDITOR, IDW © Kevin Noble: pp. 86, 87 Justin Eisinger Jean-Paul Planchon: p.© 180, 188 (bottom left) PRODUCTION DESIGN, IDW Gilberto Lazcano David Schreiner © Lesleigh Lutrell: p. 96 PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE, IDW © Baron Wolman: p. 96 Robbie Robbins EDITORIAL ASSISTANCE, IDW Alonzo Simon, COPYRIGHTS Edward Gavin, All the works of Robert and Jeremy Melloul Crumb © Robert Crumb with: PUBLISHER Ted Adams © S. Clay Wilson / Lorraine Chamberlain, ISBN: 978-1-68405-109-0 Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 Gilbert Shelton and Robert Williams: pp. 70-71 R CRUMB: FROM UNDER- Frédéric Durieu: p. 188 GROUND TO GENESIS. FIRST (bottom© left) PRINTING. DECEMBER 2017. French Edition © 2012, Paris for the publishers: Mus es, les mus es de la Ville de Actuel assigns Actuel Paris.é English Editioné © 2017 Robert Crumb, published by IDW rights: ©p. 97 (bottom right) Publishing, a division of Idea Apex Novelties: pp. 44-45, and Design Works LLC. All 53,© 78, 80-81 Rights Reserved. Editorial offices: 2765 Truxtun Road, San E.C. Publications, © Diego, CA 92106. Any similarities Inc./drawing © Jack Davis: to persons living or dead are p. 37 purely coincidental. With the Denis Kitchen: pp. 77, 139 exception of artwork used for © review purposes, none of the © Last Gasp / Robert contents of this publication may Crumb: pp. 91, 106 be reprinted without the permis- sion of Idea and Design Works, The Print Mint: p. 91 © LLC. Printed in Korea. IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork. The first sixteen pages of the catalogue were pulled from a sequence from one of Robert Crumb’s sketchbooks, 1970, artist’s collection. PARADISE FOUND —JEAN-LUC FROMENTAL So far I’ve published three Crumb tolerance for his adolescent monoma- books, each of them falling outside the nias, systematically confirms his status canon for one reason or another. R. as maestro and head of the family. Crumb’s Big Yum Yum Book, his very Like other folk heroes of his stature, first, wasn’t even meant for publication. Crumb has been the victim of a primal Aged nineteen—“and still a virgin”—he trauma. The immediate impact of an created it to win the heart of Dana Mor- oeuvre perfectly in tune with its age gan, destined to become his first wife: drew enthusiasts for whom he was more “Six months to draw it, fifteen years to prophet than creative artist. What you get divorced.” Stylistically prehistoric, it might call the Dylan Syndrome, but at nonetheless contains quite a few of the the risk of seriously antagonizing some- basic elements of the œuvre to come, one whose passion for Old-Time Music among them the taste for solidly built stops with the 1930s. A mask, a role, and ladies. At the other extreme stands the an ideology have been grafted onto a monolithic Book of Genesis, the character who, since then, has endless- author’s most monumental project ever, ly striven to get out from under the a sort of instant classic whose publica- readymade image his fans attempt to tion immediately triggered a storm of impose. This game of hide-and-seek has contradictory reactions, including radi- generated the ambiguities, misunder- cal rejection by his most fanatical standings, disenchantments, fatal nos- admirers. Crumb’s used to this kind of talgias, and excesses of admiration stud- thing, though, his career never having ding a career devoted to a quest for an been a bed of roses. Next, as a provi- elusive truth: one buried somewhere in sional conclusion to the series, came the the folds of a humanity considered in all unrestrained Parle-moi d’amour! its stark nakedness. /Drawn Together, written as a duo with Aline Kominsky-Crumb, his second wife t is interesting to observe and lifelong associate. This diary writ- Crumb’s vision of himself in ten—and prepublished in various the Big Yum Yum Book as forms—over the course of forty years Isomeone still anonymous together bridges the gap between youth and untouched by fame. He describes and maturity. The Crumb presented himself as a sociopathic toad, drawn to here is a far cry from the cavorting the company of his animal brothers, autobiographical character of the cen- but so ill-equipped for relationships tral part of the oeuvre, the compulsively that an episode of murderous ravish- buffoonish hero of My Troubles with ment has him banned from society. A Women and The Adventures of R. giant beanstalk bears him upwards, far Crumb Himself. More composed, more from his fellow men, into an Eden in control, less powerless against the inhabited by a bulimic Eve whose mea- slings and arrows of everyday life, this surements, especially from a toad’s-eye is a virile Crumb, master of himself and view, are a real turn-on. Naturally, his personal relationships, sometimes though, the physical discrepancies and even dogmatic, and most certainly ide- the giantess’s appetites soon bring the alized by Aline who, with an unfailing rapturous stay to an end, but in a 18 burst of optimism rare in the Crumb when committing the sin that bears his with and by Aline, Parle-moi d’amour!/ oeuvre—and doubtless due to the name? This piece of prudishness on the Drawn Together brings an everyday book’s marital motivations—a fairy- part of the supposed champion of the answer to the question of paradise lost. tale kiss turns the toad into a man, hard-on in all its glory has even been Written like a sitcom, this family and all is well. And all the themes of condemned by leading exegetes of the chronicle shows two artists born of the the work to come have been estab- Book of Books. And yet the transcen- utopian big bang of the Sixties living, lished. dent factor, the thing that validates the changing, and growing older, and doing As is only right, the paradise-lost motif whole enterprise, is Crumb’s ability to their best along the way to come up crops up in the first pages of The Book see and exalt women through all the with pathways to an existence far of Genesis. Interestingly, the project superhuman disproportion of obsessive removed from codes and conventions, grew out of a handful of satirical desire. The women of Genesis—Eve, yet devoted—like us, like everyone sketches of Adam and Eve, but after Sarah, Rachel, and Potiphar’s libidi- else—to the pursuit of happiness. And tinkering with the idea of parody, nous wife—inhabit Crumb’s version so amazingly, we find Crumb the misfit— Crumb decided to take the text literally. potently as to impose a new vision of tormented, paroxysmal, hypersensitive, His prepublication decision to take out the Good Book. Remaining utterly true chronically paranoid—finally declaring himself a happy man. Just one frame, but with a triple-whammy impact unri- valed in the entire oeuvre: “You know, A giant beanstalk bears ultimately I got everything I ever want- ‘‘ ed! I’ve left my mark… I’ve had the him upwards, far from his fellow most fabulous sex imaginable, beyond my wildest dreams! I’ve been lucky men, into an Eden inhabited by a that way! I have two wonderful chil- dren and a beautiful grandchild! [...] bulimic Eve whose measurements, I’m fulfilled.” Emerging from a child- hood sanctuary embodied for him in a especially from a toad’s-eye view, paper Mount Olympus where his ances- tors reside—Rudolph Dirks, E.C. Segar, are a real turn-on. George Herriman, Bud Fisher, Carl Barks, and the others—Crumb looks ’’ at his wife, and his life, and belatedly discovers (as summed up in the utter- a frame showing the Serpent squeezing to the words and tone of the original, ly American line that closes the book: Eve’s nipple testifies to his determina- right down to its tedious ellipses, repe- “Jew+Goy=Joy”) that when you look tion not to violate the monkish charac- titions, contradictions, lyrical flights, beyond the Limbo of hatching and ter of his task or allow any frivolity and legalistic listings, Crumb succeeds consolatory linework, Paradise is Oth- into its message. It is this quest for aus- in providing a new, exclusively graphic er People. terity that disconcerted some of his reading, making it clear that humani- most dedicated fans to the point of ty’s misfortune and consolation are to repudiating the Master or, at least, of be found in the divine attraction accusing him of ultimately bending the between the two halves torn one from knee to the eternal enemy that is puri- the other when they were driven out of tanism. How many times has he been the Garden of Eden. attacked for having Onan turn his back Conceived, drawn, and experienced 19 CRUMB BEFORE CRUMB 1 9 4 3 - 1 9 6 6 CAT.