Looking for opinions on Robert Crumb

[skicoak]

I'm in a cartoonist group on Facebook and we've been debating Crumb's comic work most the evening. Since it's a board mainly of old white men, I was interested what the more diverse creators group of this forum thought. Please vote and leave any additional thoughts on the matter below.

Signed

Old white dude.

• Highly influential and his work will stand the test of time
• Talented but overrated, is more a product of his time
• I do not enjoy his work at all
• Never heard of him

Vote now!Show results

[Random_Guy]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I'm familiar with Robert Crumb, and...I can't stand his style at all. It's a personal taste/beliefs thing. I do understand he's very influential and played a big part in pushing cartoons to older audiences, so...his stuff is important. But...I still hate it XD

[rajillustration]

He is both a product of his time but also made his time what it was--if that makes sense. I think nowadays we tend to separate him from his environment, so he gets way more flack now by people who just see him for the first time and are like "why is he so gross though????" but when you consider the 70's and the 80's and the 90's...yeah. I can see why he was influential, and I can see how his work influenced artists who influenced other artists and youknow...the part he played in history.

Do I personally like his work? nah. But do I get it? yeah, sure.

I mean I don't think we'd have other grungy artists like Matt Groening and Art Spiegelman and many, many others who were heavily influenced by his style if he had not happened.

[Random_Guy]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[Jenny-Toons]

My folks used to have a bunch of underground comix laying around the house. Growing up, I used to peek into some of them -- and yeah, there were some Crumb comics.

I get the intentions, but the over explicit (and honestly crude) nature pulls me out of it. And y'know, being a black woman, his depictions of black people killed my vibe. Like a lot.

I always preferred Lynda Barry's stuff, quite honestly. If anyone has ever read Ernie Pook's Comeek, you know how I'm talking about. She was also a underground comix creator kinda around the same time, and she kinda went over similar topics. But the artistic cues she took and her wording was often clear enough to paint the picture but subtle enough to make it...mundane is not the word. Maybe chill? I'll go with chill.

When I think back on it, her stuff hit me more than Crumbs, and it was actually her stuff I actively tried to keep finding. I think it was just this year alone that I finally remembered the name of that comic series of hers.

[NickRowler]

I do applaud him as a creator of underground and Adult comics however I am not going to ignore his odd portrayal of women who are in a way "grotesquely sexualized." And his depiction of black people is extremely racist.

[skicoak]

He is both a product of his time but also made his time what it was--if that makes sense.

I completely understand but I personally don't think that he was as influential as retrospective historians like to paint him as. He really didn't pioneer anything, didn't change the medium or language of the art form, and he doesn't have a strong lineage/family tree of disciples who continued what he did. His name pops up as an influence but you never see it in the page. I think the Underground, as a whole, was more of a total influence than him individually.

I'm not a music head but I heard some musicians talking about a similar thing. The Seattle Sound/Grunge existed before Nirvana ... But they put their face on it without ever being the best or most influential of the musicians/bands in that genre.

I always preferred Lynda Barry's stuff, quite honestly. If anyone has ever read Ernie Pook's Comeek, you know how I'm talking about.

That and Pinhead were the only two syndicated strips in my first college's newspaper. I dug her stuff.

however I am not going to ignore his odd portrayal of women who are in a way "grotesquely sexualized." And his depiction of black people is extremely racist.

Which is why it's a shame he's the face of Underground Comics without fully being representative of them.

[Jenny-Toons]

That and Pinhead were the only two syndicated strips in my first college's newspaper. I dug her stuff.

Or hell -- there were the Far Side comics. I dunno if Larson's stuff counts as underground, but it definitely played with the idea of cynicism in a way that was pretty funny. Word play, irony, different cues -- I love his work.

[nathanKmcwilliams]

Far Side is my jam. Love Gary Larson.

[skicoak]

Or hell -- there were the Far Side comics. I dunno if Larson's stuff counts as underground, but it definitely played with the idea of cynicism in a way that was pretty funny.

Not really Underground but definitely subversive compared to The Family Circle, Garfield, and The Peanuts.

[rajillustration]

Sure? When it comes to art history, you can't argue either way because it's pretty subjective, right? Would art have moved that direction without him? Maybe? Maybe not? Can't really prove a negative, you can only point to who was there at the time. But you can't take Nirvana out of talking about the history of Seattle grunge, and neither can you take Crumb out of his time period as well. These loud, famous voices, were what attracted a lot of people to the genre, and that did influence people. Was it a good influence? I mean, I don't like his art. Was this influence exaggerated? Yeah, I mean they were trying to be as loud as possible to be successful. Did they borrow influences? Yeah.

But when we teach art history we tend to glaze over smaller figures in history who may have been the ones who started the shifts in the styles, and we only really pinpoint to one or two of the most famous artists from each period who took those styles and really marketed them and made them popular.

[skicoak]

But when we teach art history we tend to glaze over smaller figures in history who may have been the ones who started the shifts in the styles, and we only really pinpoint to one or two of the most famous artists from each period who took those styles and really marketed them and made them popular.

True, unless you're the Renaissance ....then you get 4 because that's how many mutant ninja turtles there are.

[Random_Guy]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[TAMAnnoying]

Where is the “he is an artist” category in this checklist?

I’m awful at names so unless someone is spoken of A LOT I’ll never remember them- even then I won’t remember their entire name- like that cloud McGee guy who everyone makes fun of for not being able to draw feet.

I like his style 🤷‍♀️ But I like anything abnormal to my normal - and since I’m here on tapas “normal” is shitty BL art (and a dash of good BL art from time to time) so I’m a fan instantly due to the Xenophile I am.

Being a “product of the time” Is a usless fuckinh platadue to Delve into the art world and art history, there are reasons people are they way they are and think the way they think and unless you actually take time to study these things you just get a bunch of “well lovecraft was a rasist” and people move on without talking about his support of women authors at the time and his strange relationship with gay men. Ie that he had openly gay friends and seemed chill about it.

There are intresting things you can find out about individual artist as they are gasp human beings who lived life’s and have diffrent veiw points of your own. sadly I don’t have as much time to research random artist like I used to back in college- most of my research time is taken up in learning what diffrent types of swords are called and how people see in castles without flashlights but I urge people to actually look at the lives of artist/creators while researching their creations as it reminds us that these are ethereal creatures but people like you and me with flaws and problems of their own.

[skicoak]

Being a “product of the time” Is a usless fuckinh platadue to Delve into the art world and art history, there are reasons people are they way they are and think the way they think and unless you actually take time to study these things

In this case, it's an apt description.

The Underground Comic scene was built on the concept of challenging the "norm". There's very few of them that we get to see grow out of that period. So they all mainly remain "products of that time".

[TAMAnnoying]

I understand where you yourself are coming from with this description but with most people I have to have these conversations with it’s much more of a conversation ender then a “let’s delve deeper into this discussion” x3

[NickRowler]

You can't really compare him with something like Lovecraft. Even for the time, it was known that the way Crumb was drawing and stereotyping black people was racist. And if it was meant to commentary on it, well it sort of got lost.

I am not saying that we should "erase" Crumb by pointing out this, like I love Little Nemo in Slumberland but I am not going to ignore that Impie is a racist stereotype. Winsor McCay is very influential for animation, comics, and surrealism but that is one aspect that hasn't aged well. Which in someways makes them "a product of their time".

[elyss]

Never heard of him, looked at his stuff and uh... does he have a thing for big women? they're all so tall.

I've only taken one comics class and it was art focused btw

[snowy]

Really liked the autobiographical stuff. The rest of it...well, the art style was fascinating, I guess.
I saw that documentary where he visited his mom and his brother (maybe a few months before he killed himself). Like a real life Harmony Korine movie.
Maybe he's a modern day Hieronymus Bosch, and I'm too dumb to appreciate his art, I dunno.

To be honest, I should probably read some more before I form a definite opinion on such a prolific artist.