New cartoon from R. Crumb

Subject: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: GUEST,Metzger
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 05:10 PM

Remember Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, Cheap Thrills and Keep On Truckin'? Here's R. Crumb's latest cartoon.

Enjoy.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: DougR
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:21 PM

Enjoy? Surely you jest. What a bunch of crap.

DougR

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: mack/misophist
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:24 PM

R Crumb was indeed a sick man but didn't he die a while back? Without kin, I think. Which means one can probably fake his work.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:30 PM

Do you think he is *trying* to be offensive? ?:^o ...and I am. Big suprize...

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Gareth
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:35 PM

And the protocols of the Elders of Zion ????

Mt late father was one of the first troops into Belson in 1945, to his dying day he had difficulty in talking about what he saw.

Gareth

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: mack/misophist
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:52 PM

Historians have established that "Protocols" was a genuine document. It was written by the czarist secret police.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:54 PM

Crumb was and is an artist with the ability to make almost anything look UGLY. Including young women. Yech!

Now I see why. According to the biographical material on that site "Crumb actually despised the Hippies and everything they stood for." Ah, hah! Now I see why I instinctively despised him so much at the time (and boy was I puzzled that the other long-haired kids actually liked him...I could plainly see the contempt he had for virtually everybody and everything he drew...specially young people).

There was nothing I liked about R.Crumb. I thought he was a sick-minded, nasty creep with a psychological problem of some kind.

Looks like I was right on the money.

Interestingly enough, many of the faults he viciously exposed in the hippies WERE genuine faults (there were plenty to find), and many of the faults he points to in present society are genuine faults too...but his solutions are based on jingoistic hatred, extraordinary Anglo-German racism, the closest thing to the Nazis I've seen yet in my life. Goebbels would love this stuff.

His indictments of the media, the dishonest business mergers, the control mechanisms at the top by the rich...are pointed and appropriate. But then he pins it all on a single cultural group...the Jews. I have criticized Israel's national policy many times, but I was not doing that on the basis of attacking Jews, just on the basis of the political policy itself, period.

And what is his Final Solution to domination by World Jewry (as he would put it, NOT I): Blow up the World and fulfill the Apocalypse.

Jesus will presumably rescue the "good people" (meaning R.Crumb and all true, white, Anglo-saxon Americans), and the rest will burn.

Is this guy serious? Does he mean it, or is the whole thing a satire on Right Wing extremism at the final limit of madness?

I don't know, but I know this. R. Crumb is a very fear-twisted man. His art expresses that in every line and nuance.

Just one thing I want to know here. Is he really serious? Or is he nuts? Or both?

- LH

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Peg
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:02 PM

have any of you ever seen the documentary film "Crumb?" Absolutely amazing and fascinating; if you think this guy is weird you should seee the rest of his family...

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: NicoleC
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:03 PM

Gag. If that's satire, it's not very good satire.

Okay, I've finally decided. I dislike the self-righteous bigots who hang onto to the medieval stereotype of Jews as money-hungry baby-killers MORE than the tremblers and apologists who insist that any criticism of Israel's government makes you a self-righteous Jew-hating bigot.

Glad to get that straightened out.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:12 PM

Right on, Nicole. Well and succinctly said. Funny thing is, I think it's the same foundation of fear that fuels each of those opposing camps and sets them at each other's throats.

- LH

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:14 PM

"Is he serious?"   Depends what you mean by serious. Yes, he's serious in what he's trying to get across, and no he very obviously doesn't mean the anti-everything ethnic crap that he presents us with.

The last couple of frames indicate very clearly where he actually stands - he's saying the real enemies of us all are the clean-cut naizis who'd destroy the world in the cause of cleansing it from ordinary screwed up mortals of every race and colour.

Whether his way of getting this message across is the best way is a matter of opinion, and I'm not sure what my opinion is, and in a world and a country where people aren't always that adept at reading between the lines, it's bound be be taken the wrong way. But taking it that literal way is the wrong way to take it.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:15 PM

Pretty slimy.

And the point of starting a thread and posting that is. . . ?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:24 PM

McGrath of Harlow seems to appologize Crumb crap when he writes:

"The last couple of frames indicate very clearly where he actually stands - he's saying the real enemies of us all are the clean-cut naizis who'd destroy the world in the cause of cleansing it from ordinary screwed up mortals of every race and colour."

It amazes me that someone as astute Kevin thinks he is could reach that conclusion when reading Crumb's vile cartoon.

Kevin, go back to the cartoon, reread it and then click on the site's home page. You will see that its a neo-Nazi, white power site filled with some of the the most disgusting material I've ever seen.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:24 PM

Hmm. Cross-posted with McGrath. I actually hadn't read the whole thing, so I went back and read it again. I see what McGrath is getting at, but still, what a helluva way to try to make a point!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:49 PM

The fact that the cartoon gets posted on what I imagine is a pretty nasty site doesn't mean anything at all about what was in the mind of Crumb when he drew it.

Agreed Don, "a helluva way to try to make a point!!" And fair enough when people want to criticise him for trying to making it that way. I'm sure he overestimnates the capacity of people reading his cartoons to understand this type of grotesque irony. But that's different from taking it all at face vaklue, and assuming he's on the side of the clean nazis who are imagined as saying all this, and are shown in the end blowing up the world.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: BanjoRay
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:53 PM

Yes, its "a helluva way to try to make a point!" but it's a helluva valid point that needs making. Its a shame the nazis are too stupid to see it.
Ray

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: GUEST,Metzger
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 09:02 PM

Here's another one by R. Crumb.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 09:02 PM

If we've got to have Nazis, I'd sooner have Nazis who are stupid than Nazis who are smart.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Muskrat
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 10:03 PM

Two things about this cartoon and its appearance on Mudcat fascinate me:

(1) How "Metzger" found it, and why s/he posted it here (the reaction may be a clue)

(2) Why everybody who's posted here so far seems to be accepting that the cartoon is genuine Crumb.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Bull Am
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 10:23 PM

I hate to quibble over details, here, but this comic is not his latest work at all...It appears in a longer format in the anthology "R Crumb's America" and is copyrighted from 1993. It is significant to note that these strips were intended for his work aiming specifically at american mores and hangups, and that part of the message he was trying to convey was definitely contextual. There's always been the shock, in-your-face, confrontational element to Crumb's work, especially in his work concerning race in America, and it can't necessarily be taken at face value.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 10:50 PM

crap..that ain't genuine Crumb...it's not even a 'good' fake!

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 11:20 PM

Well, it looks like genuine R Crumb work to me. The second one is more obviously a joke than the first, but both are meant as very heavy sarcasm. Crumb is probably delighted that a White Power website has picked them up as authentic. I think what he has done is to strike at some very deeply held yet consciously denied racist concepts. Crumb could give a damn less what we think of him. He is and has always been a complete cynic regarding man's basic nature. He is an aberrant talent skulking on the outskirts of the culture and holding up a mirror to us...is the image hideously distorted, or are we in fact the monsters we see in the glass?

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Tweed
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 11:23 PM

I dunno Bill, I think it's Crumb and it's another prime example of the Crumb method of showing us how freakin' stupid a lotta things are. This is the same cartoonist who invented the "WhiteMan" character, who...
"stood for everything wrong with the guys who ran America. Whiteman's chief concern was keeping a tight asshole in all situations".
Nothing has ever been sacred with Crumb, but that's what makes him Crumb.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 11:51 PM

For a look at another side of Crumb click here

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 01:02 AM

You guys are reacting to a "piece" of Crumb's broader work, taken out of context to suit some "other" purpose than the one Crumb was going for. Yes it is satire and it is nasty satire because there is a very nasty strata of "thought" and action that these cartoons (and many, many, others) address. Oh "sure" Crumb is a racist and religious bigot and going by OTHER cartoons, Crumb is a child molester, a rapist, a murderer and (so on and so on).

Get REAL, people! Crumb is what he always was; a far-out razor-penned social satirist! And that is a BUNCH!, yes indeed!

There are times (and this is one of those times) when I get the impression that most Mudcatters are a brainless lot, easily flim flammed and willing to respond to the lowest knee-jerk bait that has ever been posted on the web. You guys remind me of Flakey Foont!

McGofH is always excepted! Kevin, how do you manage to rise above all this? It is truly an art!

CB

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 01:20 AM

While I agree that one of the purposes of art is to challenge the observer, an awful lot of what passes for art is just awful. I believe that Leinster's Law said that 99% of everything is shit. The problem is that many of the people who believe that anything that gets published is true are the same people who are excessively accepting of art.

If you don't like it or don't understand it, there are two possibilities: Either you are not prepared to understand it or you are being baffled with bullshit.

Crumb is/was an excellent cartoonist. That does not mean that his production is necessarily profound or does not reflect his perverse view of the world. He is/was a very messed up guy.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 01:52 AM

Oh.....MESSED UP HE IS ALLRIGHT, HA HA!

As has been pointed out, the movie is like watching TEN trainwrecks. My guess is that R would absolutely LOVE the fact that the Nazis appropriated his work and were too dumb to figure out that he WASN'T on their side. (if that's the case)

I've been aware of those excerpts for a number of years now (but I can't afford the book) and what concerns me a tad is that R seems to have lost a bit of his technical skills, but his determination to cut through all the crap (right and left) is obviously still there. At his peak he was a phenomenal artist....and let's not forget that he was certainly the most technically accomplished cartoon pornographer.....granted, a narrow field before the Japanese got involved recently.

Dig out those old ZAP comics and if you want to see (and can stand it) something even worse than the examples above, check out the Appletons (or whatever they were called), America's most disfunctional incestuous family. Crumb sure ain't everyone's cuppa tea, but neither was Lenny Bruce, or Andy Kauffman.

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 11:39 AM

Hmmmmmm...Ve-e-e-e-ry interesting. Okay, so it's satire, and the Nazis were too dumb to realize it.

Fine.

R. Crumb still draws everything so it looks ugly, and he is an extraordinary cynic about humanity and about life. For that reason, I do not like his art, I do not like his general attitude, I do not like his sense of humour, I do not like the way he consistently presents women as passive animalistic fucking receptacles, I do not like the way he saw only the weaknesses and self-indulgence of the counterculture and could not see the higher ideals that it also embodied, I do not like his whole idea of satire.

He's a vulgar man. I wouldn't want to share any psychic space with him whatsoever, under any circumstances.

LEJ - You wrote: "He is and has always been a complete cynic regarding man's basic nature. He is an aberrant talent skulking on the outskirts of the culture and holding up a mirror to us...is the image hideously distorted, or are we in fact the monsters we see in the glass?"

Yeah. That's why I don't like him. He's a complete cynic. A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

We are not the monsters we see in the glass...but Crumb, I believe, thinks we are. Too bad.

Now take Bob Dylan...he was ruthlessly cynical toward the unconscious hypocrisy he saw in society...he too attacked it with pointed satire...but he was not vulgar...and he balanced his cynicism about the negative things he saw with his celebration of the hopeful and beautiful things in life...

"to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free"

He saw the magnificence of life.

R.Crumb seems only to see the ugliness. He sees it and he adds to it, gleefully.

Like I said, Goebbels would love his stuff (if he could get by the sheer vulgarity of it)...and Goebbels was not stupid...but he knew that a good many people are, and can be manipulated.

I remember the "Appletons", by the way. Somewhat hilarious...tasteless...gross...twisted... Typical R.Crumb stuff. The dad with the pipe was classic. (Rick, I can get why you were amused by that one...I kind of was too, but it also make me feel sort of sick at the same time.)

- LH

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: van lingle
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 12:06 PM

Thanks for these, Metzger. For a less controversial R. Crumb there is his illustrated bio of Charley Patton at www. celticguitarmusic.com/patton1.vl

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 12:33 PM

Well said Little Hawk, 'specially the Dylan/Crumb comparison.

What I've discovered over the years of my life is that the folks who really woke me out of my stupor, the ones that really made me stand up and take notice were the LAST people I'd even want in my house for a visit or a conversation, they were simply too real, too dirty, too ugly, too emotional, too insane, too drunk, too narrow and bigoted, too stoned...and in general just tooooo...

'Cause I ain't. I'm a product of the middle class. I've never gone hungry, I've read FAR more than those who've infuenced me ('cause they CREATED while I was ABSORBING) and most importantly I've simply never HURT like they did.

I also discovered that trying to explain to others why I like the work of certain very controversial figures is virtually impossible. This is as close as I can get.

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 01:25 PM

Good points there, Rick, Lonesome, Little and all! I hung out on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley Ca. on many a weekend day ('68-'72) when I was smaller and more Idealistic-Innocent... R.Crumb was everywhere. The style of satirical/ironic humor he uses was extremely popular amoungst anti war folks, and counter culture activists. While most of us are offended to some degree by much of his work, the majority of it is 'designed' to shock us out of the accepting stupor we're hemmed into unbeknownst to us. So much offensive crap is being foisted upon our basically 'good natured' pursuit of happiness, that it often takes some pretty extreme satire to open our eyes.

R.Crumb opens up the doors to some pretty scary and dark places. I for one hve been very influenced by this style of shocking and deep cultural transcendence... Yes, It's had to take, and no, I don'tagree with him always... But that is not the point. R.Crumb doesn't always agree with R.Crumb. The points he makes often carry a shed of relavence, and this pisses all of us off!

The full appreciation of modern day hippocracy is to pierce the illusions we live with. Once a bubble bursts, there are plenty more floating blissfully between each one of us and the "peace, love and prosperity for all... " that we deserve. ttr

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 02:02 PM

I get it, Rick. I just vastly prefer the Dylan approach to shocking people out of their stupor, that's all.

I'm reminded of when he said to a British audience (referring to "Visions of Johanna" as hypothetically being labelled a "drug song" by the press)...

"I don't write drug songs. It's just vulgar to think so..."

This is not to imply Dylan didn't take drugs at times...but he knew that his creative work had a higher purpose in mind than expressing that.

If you're going to ruthlessly satirize the stupor and blindness of middle-class culture, I would prefer it done by taking the high road rather than the low one.

After all, the commercial systems which have lulled the middle class into that stupor ARE the habitual travellers of the low road, aren't they? They are the guys who put out Hollywood "action" films, the WWF, teen slasher movies, fast food, jetskis, SUV's that roll over and kill you at the drop of a hat, assault rifles for suburban paranoids, soft and hard pornography, music videos, and all the other crap that has put people into their customary stupor.

They are just as ugly as R.Crumb's cartoon art. But not quite so unexpected, that's all. He boldly goes where bad taste has seldom gone before. I'm glad he doesn't live next door to me.

- LH

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: harpgirl
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 02:15 PM

...I saw the movie, Peg. R. Crumb is truly an "outlier" in the world of (statistical) people.

I'm surprised you aren't more tolearant, LH. I pegged you as someone willing to look into the mirror such artists hold up to our culture!

The highly creative (not just talented) people I've known over the years may have been frightening to many of us, but I find them fascinating, challenging to be around, and exquisitely sensitive to the world's bullshit!   


http://www.lambiek.net/crumb.htm

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 02:31 PM

And what is so wrong with the World Wildlife Fund, I ask?

I pretty much echo what Rick said, as my experience has been similar. Crumb was everywhere in my youth, and much of that has to do with the joy young people get out of shocking the elders. So, he fed a need in that regard certainly. The fact that he appeals more to the young than to the old is that some of us lose our tolerance for the vulgar as we mature. I've never liked the vulgarity of Crumb's work, but I could always appreciate the satire and lampooning.

As to the Mudcat base (as someone else mentioned), it has always been apparent to me that the majority of folks who post here weren't involved in 60s counterculture, and so are "shocked and appalled" at much that we valued, and speaking for myself, continue to value about that culture today. It is still very much who I am, and no, that isn't an aging hippie, as I was never a hippie. But the artistic and political aesthetic was one I identified with strongly, and still do.

Except for Crumb, and the Dead (they both sort of went hand in hand). I was never a Deadhead either. Musically I was a cross somewhere between Motown, Poco, the Byrds, New Riders, Haight acid rock, and a whole lot of so-called "protest" music--ie Weavers, Pete & Woody, Arlo, Ramblin' Jack, that sort of thing, along with my girls like Laura Nyro, Joni, Sandy Denny, and then Pentangle, Bothy Band sorts of stuff.

I was never a Fairport fan either, though. Go figure.

Comments about American literalism here, and how it handicaps critical judgement and thinking, is dead on. Also, I make what for me in an important distinction whenever I am "judging" art--I can have a deep appreciation for something, without liking it, which is often the case with art that is intended to disturb us.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 02:46 PM

Ha! Ha! Ha! Good one, GUEST!

It isn't that I'm not tolerant, harpgirl. I am not in favor of stripping R.Crumb naked, flaying him alive, running over him with a roadgrader, and throwing the remains into a pit full of starving sewer rats. Not at all. I think he has a perfect right to be vulgar and tasteless in his assaults on the vagaries of a half-mad, half-barbaric culture (to use Amos's marvelous expression), and I would not deny him that right. I tolerate R.Crumb and his ugly art.

He just makes me feel nauseous, that's all.

I feel the same way about the late Vaughn Bode (creator of Cheech Wizard).

It's a matter of taste, not tolerance.

- LH

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 03:02 PM

I'm guessing at least some of what the Beat poets, Ken Kesey, Hunter Thompson, and others of that era wrote would be "shocking and appalling" to most American Mudcatters too.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 03:16 PM

Here's a link to a page about "R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders" - "a loosely organized string band playing songs from the 1920s and (occasionally) modern songs styled after the songs of the 20s. They recorded three albums in the 70s and occasionally are active today, though usually without Mr. Crumb who lives in France."

With a link which gets you sound samples. Very wholesome stuff. I get the impression that once the vitriol was out of his system he'd play sweetly on the mandolin.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 05:30 PM

OhMy! "little" is coming across a tad judgemental... or is it just me?:^}

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 06:45 PM

I read Ken Kesey...he had some good stuff to say, but he seemed to have difficulty creating female characters who weren't very one-dimensional. Read Hunter S. Thompson too, and really could not find much there that I wanted to spend any time on. Isn't the guy in Doonesbury modeled after Hunter S.? I mean the guy with the Chinese girl assistant, whatever his name is...

Boy, I bet Republicans hate Doonesbury almost as much as I hate Crumb's art!

I should also point out that I am not in favour of R.Crumb being suspended by his little toe over a pit of alligators either. I don't believe in cruelty to animals. :-)

- LH

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 06:45 PM

OK, as usual, I'm gonna get a little too personal for someone who uses their own name here, rather than a pseudonym.

Back when I played a lot of 'commercial gigs' I'd get hired occasionally for 'garden parties' held at the homes of very prominent Liberal Party (Canadian) Politicians.

On the surface this Party stood for 'liberal' values. Equality for all, etc.

As a strolling musician, with great hearing, and the INCLINATION to hear what was being said by the very powerful, I did a lot of eavesdropping while playing instrumental versions of Beatle songs.

The prejudices were astonishing. Visciously anti-semitic and anti-French.....some amzingly anti-female stuff when there wasn't a woman at a table. All of it accompanied by hearty laughter......and these were the "good guys".

I became (and still remain to this day) hugely cynical. R. Crumb's work was violent and ugly but it WAS satire. He took a lot of well deserved heat...mainly from the left, 'cause I doubt if the mainstream (represented by many of those politicians I spoke of) were even aware of him. Too bad, they might have seen themselves in some of his more hypocritical cartoon characters.

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 07:01 PM

Actually, you're dead right, Rick. Crumb's work should've been shoved in the faces of the people at the top...who, as you say, are probably mostly unaware of his work...rather than being foisted on us poor, starving musicians and such at the bottom. :-)

Good points there, my man! In my experience, the Canadian Liberal Party stands for only one thing: getting elected by whatever means possible (and, of course, staying elected).

- LH

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 07:21 PM

Anyway, aside from the cartoons, there's some nice Crumby music in that link I gave, and that's perhaps a bit more likely to win him friends round here.

Hunter Thompson? I love him. Not too sure why. I doubt if we'd agree on too many things. But maybe we'd have a bunch of objects of hate and contempt in common, and that can be as good. (And he co-wrote a great song called Saints and Sots with Jimmie Ibbotsen and George Stranahan tha I've never been able to hear the whole of.)

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 08:47 PM

Hunter Thompson was a brilliant writer, very talented. Very wasted talent in the long haul sadly, but there were a lot of casualties of the era.

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is a classic of the times.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 10:23 PM

And most of those casualties were due to drug abuse of one kind or another...

"Fear and Loathing in Schenectady" did not do as well for some reason.

- LH

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Tweed
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 11:30 PM

And all this vitriol coming from the Champion of Shatner? Good Lord, LH get a grip lad! A matter of taste not tolerance? Of course he's rude, lewd and crude but most of the world out there is just that way. You can't hide under a rock til it goes away. If you can be made to laugh at the ridiculous (our world) it becomes not so fearsome. Crumb is a genious at doing this for us, but you gotta trust yourself enough to let go and bust out laughing when Fat Freddy's cat sh*t's in his shoe or his "stash" or when yet another buxom teenybopper falls victim to the wise and revered Mr.Natural. ahhh...well you don't have to if you don't want to I guess, but they sure made me laugh out loud and sometimes even think for myself when I was younger.
Just try the Charley Patton comic link that Lonesome EJ left up there.

Crumb's History of Patton

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 17 Nov 02 - 12:34 AM

Oh, man, thanks Tweed and Van Lingle for that Biography of Patton written and drawn by Crumb. That is SOO friggin' beautiful. The drawing is vintage Crumb, as good (or better) than his sixties work. It takes time to download, but if anybody wants to really get a handle on why Crumb's work affected neophyte cartoonists like me so strongly, here it is. The respect he has for his subjects obvious. There is little satire...although much irony here.

I'm afraid there is SO MUCH 'between the lines' stuff in his work that a lot of folks simply can't get past, what first jars their senses. His sexism, for example is blatant, and admitted...while folks like Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson mouth 'womens' rights' platitudes and get NOW endorsements, while being completely hypocritical. Sorry, I prefer (even ugly) honesty to that.

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Nov 02 - 09:30 AM

Rick, I agree that the Patton bio is beautiful work. (And might look good in leather.)

I guess the other is one of those things where I can respect the man's talents and what I think he's trying to get across but I don't like it. I've been trying to figure out why I don't like it. If it's supposed to be sarcasm, it's just too bloody obvious and unoriginal. If all it takes is to string together a story based on hateful stereotypes, anybody who wants to could do it. Most folks just don't want to. The drawings are great but but the message is either cheered by anti-semites, not understood as satire and condemned by some folks (a lot of enlightening going on there!) or the satire is as clear as day to other folks who get to about the 2nd page, say "yuck" and "duh" and go read something a little more imaginative. I don't resent the ugliness he presents so much as the lack of finesse in the story line. To me, there's no difference between his story line and the story line a KKK propagandist might dream up. Not being that familiar with his work, I'm never quite sure it is satire. The only clue is that it's over the top, but the people who believe that shit are over the top as well. The people who run the site the anti-semitic thing is on seem to feel like it expresses their view. Crumb created a great tool for them whether he meant to or not.

Perhaps that's why I don't care for Andy Kaufman's humor either. There's that part of my mind that wants to believe its all satire, and there's another part that isn't quite sure if he's pretenting to say one thing while meaning another or he's pretending to pretend.

Maybe I don't like this type of humor because I can't resolve what message the perpetrator is trying to get across and maybe that's the very same reason other people like it. Lack of clarity as a valuable skill...hmmm

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 17 Nov 02 - 11:34 AM

Hi Jeri, you said:

"Maybe I don't like this type of humor because I can't resolve what message the perpetrator is
trying to get across and maybe that's the very same reason other people like it. Lack of clarity
as a valuable skill...hmmm"

Me again:

You've absolutely nailed it. believe me, I think life would have been a bit clearer (although possibly less interesting) for me, had I NOT found (and continue to find) the 'fringe' humourists so funny, and thought provoking.

Attempting to explain to others why I loved the TV show "Ab Fab" was such a weird feeling, that often I just drifted into another topic, and changed the subject. Same with Kauffman, "Yes, Minister", (some) Crumb, and even the amazingly dark (and hugely popular sitcom) "Seinfeld".

I simply don't KNOW why these things are of such fascination. I don't live in a garret,(or basement) and dream up evil plans, I don't get kicks from hassling people on the internet,.....who knows, maybe I'm an axe murderer in waiting Ha Ha!

What I DO know is that I LOVE dark humour, the more ironic the better...and a huge dose of irony can be verrrry ugly. Perhaps it has something to do with THINKING I understand the motives of the creator (as opposed to the Creator!!)....like in the case of Crumb. Maybe I'm wrong, and the folks who think he's specifically an anti-semite are right. Personally I think he's anti-hypocracy...and that may be the most dangerous (and misunderstood )form of satire of all. One of the really neat things I've found is to accidently meet someone who shares your love of a fringe interest. You both smile, 'cause you don't HAVE to explain yourself.

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Nov 02 - 11:42 AM

"Hypocracy" is a government of underachievers? Or maybe it's what Libertarians want? As opposed to Hypercracy? (Sorry - I'm not normally a spelling wossname, but I saw an opportunity.)

Rick, I loved AbFab and thought what I saw of Seinfeld was funny. I like Vonnegut and there are times he can get as dark as Crumb. I guess it was just more obvious they were taking the piss. Or maybe just more obvious to me.

Subject: RE: New cartoon from R. Crumb
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 02 - 11:57 AM

I agree about Crumb's shortcomings, and the comparison to Andy Kaufman is an apt one. Both were vulgar, and neither particularly adept at irony and dark humor. And I prefer my humor nearly as black as it can get.

The problem for me with both of those men was the way both of them overshot the mark regularly, and the fact that you knew they *weren't* kidding about certain things, like their sexism. Which just made them mean, and (unless you share their particular prejudices) not funny.

Vonnegut is a good example of an artist who walked that fine line better than any of his contemporaries, and I would claim, better than most any American artists since. All Vonnegut's books aren't masterpieces, but that body of work is astounding.

I think the difference is the place a Vonnegut is coming from, and the place a Crumb or a Kaufman is coming from--two very different places, and the latter two artists came from a place of bitterness. Vonnegut, on the other hand, was coming from a place of hope beyond reason.