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ABOUT
ROBERT CRUMB: |
Robert Crumb is the world famous cartoonist responsible for unforgettable
characters such a Fritz the Cat, Devil Girl and Mr Natural. As
one of the early American underground taboo-breaking cartoonists
he found Zap Comics in the 1960's and
continues to influence just about every cartoonist who comes after
him. More details
here.
If you know of any other comic-related reading
recommendations made by Robert Crumb in interviews or articles
we would love to hear from you. Please provide a scan and/or
link if possible.
Email: recommended [at] readyourselfraw [dot] com |
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RECOMMENDED READING: |
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by Peter Bagge
"I enjoy
his work immensely. It cracks me up. I think he's an up-and-coming great cartoonist
of our time... I can count on one hand the number of comic artists of his generation
whose work is as strong... maybe on two or three fingers... It's a
laff riot, what can I tell ya?"
From the www.peterbagge.com site
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by Ivan Brunetti
"Have you given any thought to getting on Prozac? I suppose
I have to take part of the blame for encouraging this sort of
thing in the comics... I thought your comic was sharp and funny
and well drawn, but SO fucking NEGATIVE and SELF-ABSORBED, it's
hard to take...But anyway, like, thanks for sharing..."
From a letter in Schizo #2
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by Charles Burns
"The
work of Charles Burns is a vision that's both horrifying and hilariously funny,
and which he executes with cold, ruthless clarity... it's almost as if the
artist... as if he weren't quite... human!"
From the back cover blurb
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by David Collier
"You, sir, have a gift, a genius, shall we say, for a
certain esoteric level of dry, existential humor... and you get better
at it as you mature."
From a letter to Collier
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by Julie Doucet
"Okay, she's not a comic story-teller in the "normal" sense,
but her personal vision is honest and compelling... I find her
completely sincere, incapable of "structured, linear narratives",
sure, but her "stories" are like powerful dreams...
I admire her work and sympathise with the crisis she's going
through... Her struggle is to continue to draw under the magnifying
glass of recognition at a young age, when one is still developing
and not so sure of how to get along in the world... I'm happy
to see that, while she's drawing less than before (I'm sure she's
close to being burned out by the constant barrage of demands
for her talents from all sides), it's as good as ever... I thought
her latest Dirty Plotte was great!
I hope she can make it through the ocean of bullshit that she
has to cope with... Even if she has to back off and quit drawing
for a while... I hope she's tough enough to survive..."
From a letter to Crash #2
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by Dennis P. Eichhorn & Various Artists
"Eichhorn is a great story teller... I still find it
hard to believe that it all really happened to him, but since I'm
a wimp and a weakling, I know I have lived a very different life
from fellows like Eichhorn... The amount of violence and fighting
Eichhorn has been involved in is, in itself, astonishing to one
such as me. But he is also gifted with a good sense of humour,
irony and self-criticism, so that he has been able to turn his
life experiences into good stories."
From the advertising blurb
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by Drew Friedman & Josh Alan Friedman
"I stand in awe of Drew Friedman's
technique and the certain flavor of sad old America he captures. He's the Crumb
of the 80's. I love his stuff... He's such a wacko!"
From the advertising blurb
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by Phoebe Gloeckner
"There's another thing about Phoebe, though; she's a very tough
woman, physically and mentally. She has this quality of being
indestructible. She survived a youth that would have killed some
people. She came out of it all still looking fresh, clear, healthy
and whole. I guess she has exceptionally good genes. Maybe she
has a little problem with low self-esteem and like that, but mostly
she seems made out of hard rubber. She bounces back... very tough.
You can't help but stand in amazement at a person like that...
I consider her story Minnies 3rd Love, or Nightmare
On Polk Street one of the comic-book masterpieces
of all time... right up there at the top."
From the introduction |
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by Justin Green
"Justin
Green - He's out of his mind! I love every stroke of his nervous pen, Every
tortured scratch he has ever scrawled! He was the first, absolutely the first
ever cartoonist to draw highly personal autobiographical comics. Binky
Brown started many other cartoonists along the same path,
myself included. By me, he's tops! Someday Justin will get the
recognition he deserves, if only by the scholars and connoisseurs
of comics, but for the time being, it's just as well he doesn't
get it. It would only cripple him and add more weight to his
already heavy burden of guilt."
From the back cover blurb
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by Gilbert Hernandez
"One
of my favourite things I've seen recently is Gilbert Hernandez's Heartbreak Soup...
I thought that was rich comics...You really learn from it. It's entertaining,
I like the drawing, it's humorous... It's got everything."
From an interview, The Comics Journal #121
"One of my favourite things I've seen recently is Heartbreak
Soup... To me it's the most eloquent statement that's ever been
made about growing up in that culture. I've never seen anything
else in comics - I guess there might be something in literature
- but in comics there's never been anybody that's come out of
Mexican or Latin culture that's touched that."
From the back cover blurb, Love & Rockets Volume 2 |
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by Harvey Kurtzman
"He
is as good as any cartoonist in history that I know of. Some of his greatest
stuff was done in a little Ballantine Book called Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book published
around 1959. Kurtzman did all the drawing as well as the writing.
I hope somebody will reprint it someday in its entirety on good
paper, as I'd like to own a copy."
From the back cover blurb
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by Joe Matt
"Just what the world needs - another repressed, obsessed,
ex-catholic cartoonist - I can't wait to see what happens next...
God help him!"
From the advertising blurb
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by Keiji Nakazawa
"It's very much like Maus in
that there is a strange dichotomy between what's going on and
the way it's drawn. It's drawn in almost a light-hearted style,
and yet the subject matter is the grimmest and the heaviest,
just unmitigated grimness. It's just the truth about something
terrible that happened, the truth that has to be told. It's very
powerful when comics are used in that way. Gen was
the most informative thing I've ever experienced about that piece
of history, a personal account done in comic book form that really
came across strongly. It gave me the strongest understanding
of that experience that I've ever had."
From an interview, The Comics Journal #121
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by Harvey Pekar
"Hardly anything actually happens... Mostly it's just people
talking, or Harvey by himself, panel after panel, haranguing
the hapless reader. There's not much in the way of heroic struggle,
the triumph of good over evil, resolution of conflict, people
over coming great odds, stuff like that. It's kinda sorta more
like real life... real life in late twentieth century Cleveland
as it lurches along from one day to the next... And Harvey Pekar
is their witness. He is one of them. He reports the truth of
life in Cleveland as he sees it, hears it, feels it in his manic-depressive
nervous system."
From the introduction to American Splendor:
Bob & Harv's
Comics
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by Jim Woodring
"I
wish I had this guy's talent."
From the advertising blurb
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