The R. Crumb Handbook [With CD]

I'm not vouching for the viewpoints taken or the commentaries on our bizarre human condition and culture necessarily, but this thick book (with a great cd of original and funny music) with its outrageous take on everything sacred is an inspiring dig into an artist's convoluted (but somehow eerily solid) psyche. I first saw many of these strips and characters in underground comics, tabs, independent newspapers, etc. back when I was a teen in the 70's and always was amazed at the hard-hitting art and dialogue. IT IS A TRIP! Sometimes, when the right frame of mind is brought around, this book will have you laughing more than you can barely stand. Just flow with it and forget your rigid alter-ego at the coat check. This is theater for the insane (with strong metaphorical realism). TAKE IT FOR FOR WHAT IT IS! A WINDOW INTO THE MIND OF A TRUE ARTIST. Makes a great gift for the moral majority members of your local PTA.

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.

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.

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.

R. Crumb is a masterfully gifted illustrator but a bit of a deviant. That being said Crumb's status as an artist, from the days when he was one of the pioneers of the underground comic book to today when the New Yorker gives him multiple color pages, continues to grow. No less of an art critic than Robert Hughes ("The Shock of the New") lauds Crumb as one of the greatest living artists of our times. Although some of his work is not for the faint of heart (sometimes being sexually graphic while at other times being emotionally and psychologically challenging) I recommend this work to anyone that can take it (adults only). I especially recommend it to any student of art. To say the sexually graphic images of R. Crumb's have no redeeming value is to entirely miss the point as through his words and illustrations he is a unique social critic. Indeed some of the shocking aspects of his art are wake up calls that jolt the soul. This volume is a great overview of Crumb but it is by no means complete and true hard-core Crumb fans might be disappointed at some slight omissions in his biography. Indeed a more complete autobiography is contained in the complete opus of Crumb's artwork. Nevertheless I highly recommend this book to every adult. Robert Crumb is truly an individual I would like to know personally. He is in many ways a contradiction (or perhaps so he would like us to believe). As self admitted misanthrope his cartoons show a man who is quite the opposite. For although his work can be quite brutal he again and again through his work betrays his sympathy for the human condition. Many times depicting women is what I will put delicately as "compromising situations" and charactures I believe it is not so much that Crumb is a misogynist (which he has called himself) but a sympathetic as well autobiographical commentary on how women are viewed and treated in society. Crumb always has been self deprecating yet is obviously aware of his place in art. The book comes complete with CD of Crumb's music and makes for a nice package (in a strange way by ths mulitmedia approach living up to the title). Put the CD in the player and listen as you slowly absorb the life, views and most importantly the art of R. Crumb.