R. Crumb: The Comics Journal Library Vol. 3

1st printing. Bright, clean & tight oversized paperback, unread, in AS NEW condition. 120pp. 12"x12" trim. "Few cartoonists have affected our world the way Robert Crumb (1943-) has, from busting cultural and sexual taboos for artists everywhere with his pioneering underground comix to his never-ending drive to improve his art. [] This book, the third volume of The Comics Journal Library series, presents a composite portrait of the artist through four long out-of-print interviews from the Utne Independent Press Award-winning magazine's archives and a never-before-published chat from the artist's 1980s renaissance. This volume spans Crumb's life and career, covering his views on sex, politics, art, racism and culture, his peers and family, his flirtations with success on America's terms and his later rejections of those terms. It also provides an absorbing oral history of the latter half of the 20th century from the point of view of an artist who helped shape it." [publisher copy] "Robert Crumb . . . makes me proud to be an American."--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. "R. Crumb is an original. He's a great cartoonist, and that, in my book, deserves great respect. Our 'contemporary civilization' is lucky to have him, and to have his work."--Jim Jarmusch. "Robert Crumb is best known as the father of underground comics and a leading chronicler of the hippie scene, but he has progressed far beyond his sixties-based fame. His work now appears in the New Yorker and other upscale publications--a far cry from the cheaply printed, hand-stapled comic books he once hawked on the streets of San Francisco. New collections of interviews with Crumb limn a complex artist even more provocative than the eccentric outsider seen in the acclaimed documentary film 'Crumb.' [] Opting for depth rather than breadth, Fantagraphics, publisher of an ongoing Complete Crumb, issues a coffee-table collection of five substantive interviews from the pages of Comics Journal, the field's foremost critical resource. Conducted between 1984 and 1995, they reflect the mature Crumb, including discussion of his sexual promiscuity and masturbation habits. The highlight among the five, and likely to remain the definitive Crumb interview, is a lengthy, career-spanning 1988 discussion with Journal editor Gary Groth. Befitting their provenance, these conversations' primary concern is Crumb's work, though they don't stint on his iconoclastic views and personal quirks and, in fact, convincingly show how the work and the quirks inextricably intertwine. Including copious helpings of Crumb's drawings--a color section displays full-page illustrations--the volume showcases Crumb's art as well as his life."--Booklist. Pristine paperback w/brilliant corners & crisp edges, a square & tight binding w/no creases in spine. …