In January, 1967, Crumb says he "escaped to San Francisco when I met two guys in a bar who said they were driving west." He had also abandoned his job and temporarily broken-up with Dana, but she soon followed Crumb to San Francisco. This drug-induced state lasted from late 1965 to late March of 1966. His mind would wander, most commonly to 1940's cartoon images, and while his rational mind was dysfunctional, his drawings poured from him without the worry of what other people thought. Snoid, and Angelfood McSpade.Ĭrumb describes his years on acid as a fuzzy state, during which he saw "dancing electric images" in his head and couldn't think clearly. After nine months of trying to make it as a commercial artist, Crumb returned to Cleveland with his wife, Dana, in what continued to be an acid-soaked period during which he'd create many of his characters, including: Mr. Kurtzman invited Crumb to New York to work with him on Help! in 1965, but by the time Crumb got there, the magazine ceased publication, preventing him from stepping up as assistant editor to Kurtzman. Kurtzman liked Crumb's controversial work and published it in his underground satire comic Help! It was in this magazine that Crumb introduced and developed Fritz the Cat, one of his most popular characters. While working, Crumb had also been submitting some of his work to Harvey Kurtzman in New York, the creator and editor of MAD Magazine. Crumb would later illustrate early issues of Pekar's working class comic American Splendor. It made me stop taking cartooning so seriously and showed me a whole other side of myself." He also met fellow jazz aficionado Harvey Pekar while in Cleveland. I started taking LSD in June of '65," he explains on his website. When Crumb recounts how he first got published, he includes losing his virginity with his first wife, Dana Morgan, in 1964, and LSD experimentation in 1965 as pivotal changing points. ![]() "My work has this cuteness about it." While at American Greetings, Crumb also worked under Tom Wilson, who later went on to create the popular cartoon character Ziggy. He was then hired to design cards, a higher paying job that required him to draw "the simplest neutered little cartoon characters." He drew hundreds of cards over the next several years, a job that would influence his future work. I went into his office and he said, What can you do, what are your skills, what've you got to offer? I said, Well, I'm an artist, I draw." Without a single drawing sample in hand, Crumb was scheduled for a job interview with American Greetings two days later, thanks to that employment agent.Ĭrumb began his career with American Greetings as a color separator until the cartoon sketches he had around his light table caught the eye of another department. I went to the Ohio state employment agency, and there was an old guy, I'll never forget him. I was determined to do anything for a job. "When I got to Cleveland," Crumb tells Ted Widmer in the Paris Review, "I was determined to find a job and not go home, it was too depressing at home. Impressed by Foo, Pahls stayed in touch with Crumb until he graduated from Kent State and then invited Crumb to Cleveland. In 1962, Crumb was invited to live in Cleveland, Ohio, with his friend Marty Pahls, who had discovered him through Foo - an imitation of Mad Magazine that Crumb, at fifteen, and Charles created, Xeroxed, and tried to sell door-to-door for a dime. ![]() "But then, you know, a lot of people were - nothing unusual about being an outcast in high school."Īfter graduation, he spent a year at home, during which he drew a lot, read at the insistence of his brother, Charles, and endlessly discussed the meaning of life with Charles, who would remain at home and later commit suicide in 1993. "I was one of those social rejects," he says on the Official Crumb website. In high school, Crumb was not very popular and often felt alienated. ![]() Crumb also has a younger brother, Maxon, who creates abstract, Cubist-influenced oil paintings and lives in San Francisco. The two shared a love of comics and co-wrote comics together, which included early renditions of Crumb's famous character, Fritz the Cat. ![]() Crumb credits his older brother, Charles, for being his biggest influence growing up. Moving frequently during his childhood, Crumb and his family eventually settled in Delaware in 1956 when his father retired after 20 years in the US Marine Corps. Robert Crumb was born in West Philadelphia on August 30, 1943, to a Marine father and a Catholic mother.
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