Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me: Robert Crumb Letters 1958-1977

A revealing collection of the great artist's private correspondence.

“I feel that my work is but a feeble expression of something that in itself is vague and doubtful… Sometimes when I probe myself I find that my intentions in art aren't as sincere as they should be… I realize that I’m fairly good at drawing, but you see that’s only because I've done so much of it, and it seems sometimes that the only reason I have stuck at it so diligently is because I have to sort of get even with society for not accepting me… Subconsciously I want to make myself immortal among men, leave my mark on the earth to compensate for social inadequacy… So I draw.”
―R. Crumb, 9/29/61

Spanning the most formative era of his life, from the painful years of adolescence to the fame and fortune of early adulthood, this collection of personal correspondences with two near-lifelong friends sheds light on the artistic development, bitter struggle, and ultimate triumph of the world’s greatest living cartoonist.Crumb writes about many key events in his life: the dissolution of his first marriage, the pain of being separated from his first child, his troubles with the IRS, and his obsessions with comics, music and women, most notably his earliest experiences with Aline Kominsky-Crumb, now his wife of over 30 years. An entertaining and revealing look into the mind of a great artist and thinker; this is Crumb’s sketchbook of words, featuring scores of rare art, including entire letters drawn in cartoon form.

Black & white throughout

Born in Philadelphia, Robert Crumb is one of America’s most celebrated artists. Thrust reluctantly into fame as a defining voice of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture with comic strips like Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, and Keep on Truckin’, then again in the 1990s with the acclaimed documentary Crumb and more recently the 2025 biography Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life, he continues to push himself and his chosen medium from his home in the south of France.