Winter 2026
Shock and draw
Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life
By Dan Nadel. Scribner / Simon & Schuster, $35/£25. Reviewed by Steven Heller
R. Crumb is the comics deity of my freak generation. Meeting him for the first time, while he was playing vintage music with his band at a wedding of a mutual friend, was an unforgettable thrill. Many, like me, were weaned on his ribald repertory of characters, including Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, Joe Blow, Forky O’Donnell, Honeybunch Kaminski, Angelfood McSpade and many more puckish, reborn vintage comics stereotypes and clichés …
… The book is not just about a pioneer of hippie-era comics (though Crumb was not a flower-power hippie), but an account of a great artist – however problematic – of his time, and one who continues to surprise, delight and shock.
Steven Heller design writer, educator, New York City
Read the full version in Eye no. 109 vol. 28, 2025
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