Crumb interview (1 Viewer)

I do some trades with Crumb's brother-in-law... Buk/Crumb collaborations for Crumb signed stuff. That sig looks different from any sig I've seen, so I sent the link to him. He says there is "no way in hell" that's Crumb's signature.
 
[...] there is "no way in hell" that's Crumb's signature.
interesting.
Since he's the expert, I do trust his judgment. No complaints from my side.


Makes me curious, though, concerning the provenience of this item:
Seems, it's a 'Zweitausendeins'-production (they did work together with Crumb personally for years and decades, that's for sure).
Of course, this does not grant, that this autograph is legit.

We'd need to know, where MM got this from.
Was it a sort of 'signed-edition' officially sold by 'Zweitausendeins' from the beginning? Then it should be ok.
Or did he buy it from some (obscure) source as being signed? [doesn't sound like him, to me.] Or did he himself hand the book to Crumb to sign it? [I, personally, would rule out that, because MM wouldn't have asked to sign on such an odd page.]

as I said, I do believe you and him, being experts.
I dunno shit about Crumb.
I only wonder.
(sometimes.)
 
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I really didn't want to mention this because he still owes mé at least $200.00 worth of product, but the guy is crazier than a shit house rat. That said, he knows Crump's shit, and I told him that Crump should send a note if it's not legit. So if Crump actually sends the note and they take it down, then that's what it is. They all live together in a house in France that Crumb traded for a sketch book. The brother in law buys stuff on eBay, gets Crumb to sign it and sells it for top dollar. There's a NYT article that mentions this. Like I said, he's crazy, but he knows his shit.
 
I´m sure the signature is legit. Crumb often signed his books in capital letters. I saw such Crumb signatures when I visited the Lambiek comic book shop in Amsterdam some years ago. I too, had my doubts about the signatures but the shop owner told me they were real and that Crumb himself signed the books when he visited the shop a few years earlier on.
Still, it's not what I would call a "signature" and if I one day should buy a signed book by Crumb I´ll make sure it's got one of his "real" signatures.
I´ve often wondered if he signed some of his books in capital letters as a way of protesting the "signature frenzy" collectors suffers from because I remember him telling a comic shop employee who wanted his autograph that he did´nt believe in autographs so the employee did´nt get one. I believe the scene is in the Crumb documentary by Terry Zwigoff.
 
Crumb often signed his books in capital letters.
He used to, yes. But if you compare one of those to the signature in this thread there are a couple of things that are kind of the opposite of characteristics in a Crumb block letter signature, and that makes this one look very wrong. Just saying. I'm no expert either.
 
I see! I must admit I have´nt compared this capital letter signature to some of his earlier ones. It certainly would be easy to fake a capital letter signature.
 
I'm sorry I stepped into this pile of cow shit. I know NOTHING sbout Crumb's signitures. The only thing that seemed strange was that Crumb seemed to put some value in his signature and this one seems void of that.
 
All I can compare it to is my signed copy of The Captain... and the meticulousness with which that is signed (albeit in the more standard cursive fashion) makes this all caps signature look odd. But I'm less of an expert than others here.
 
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Arena documentaries have been a great discovery for me. The best one I've found so far was the one on Burroughs. Really comprehensive! In this one, I love the posture of Crumb when he's looking through at the women who are exercising to music (05:00), it's a perfect caricature of his own work!!! I'm surprised they didn't get security to throw out the 'old pervert'! :wb:
 
I love the posture of Crumb when he's looking through at the women who are exercising to music (05:00), it's a perfect caricature of his own work!!! I'm surprised they didn't get security to throw out the 'old pervert'! :wb:

yeah, that was great. his rap about the "age of the amazon" was hilarious too.
 
433_1R__Crumb__1_1968.jpg
 
That was so funny about 'Devil Girl', but it reminds me of how obsessed an artist can get with their works of creation, whether it's a writer, sculptor, cartoonist, whatever. I haven't had voices in my head yet, though.

Mmmm ... perhaps one day if I concentrate hard enough. ;))
 
As for hearing voices, I once read a book by the "anti - psychiatrist" Ronald D. Laing in which he wrote of a patient who talked to the voices he was hearing. The patient then got a lobotomi and now he talked to the voices he no longer could hear complaining to them why he could´nt hear them anymore. :D
 
Speaking of Crumb, most of you probably know his friend Harvey Pekar. Pekar and Crumb collaborated on some stories. Pekar wrote the stories and Crumb did the drawings. Most of them, if not all of them, appeared in Pekar's comic book series, "American Splendor", and were later collected in a comic book called, "Bob & Harv Comics".
Harvey Pekar is now getting a park in Cleveland named after him. It´ll be named Pekar Park on Saturday, July 25.
Maybe Crumb too will get a park named after him one day or maybe a street or a square.

Pekar-Park.JPG



All events will be held in Pekar Park, with the exception of the outdoor showing of the American Splendor movie which will be screened in Coventry P.E.A.C.E. Park (Located directly across the street.)

Pekar Park is located at the Northwest Corner of Coventry Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard in the Coventry Village neighborhood of Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

http://coventryvillage.org/2015/06/pekar-park-dedication-event-sat-july-25th/
 
I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but here is Al Goldstein's interview with R. Crumb on the 'Midnight Blue' show. If there are any Sean Penn fans out there, you might want to block your ears for the opener. Al seems to have an issue with Sean for some reason, which doesn't get explained, but I do love Al Goldstein's gentle, sensitive approach when dealing with Crumb's shyness:


Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio interview with Crumb:

 
Thanks! I have'nt watched any of them before.

Al seems to have an issue with Sean for some reason, which doesn't get explained,

I think it does get explained. He don't like Sean Penn because he's been hitting photographers and been behaving badly in general. I don't know when the video is from, but I remember Sean Penn having started some fights when he was younger which made the newspapers.
 
He don't like Sean Penn because he's been hitting photographers and been behaving badly in general. I don't know when the video is from, but I remember Sean Penn having started some fights when he was younger which made the newspapers.
I think you're right, 'Bukfan'. I wasn't sure if Sean Penn had done something personal to Al Goldstein.
 
:DD
Hilarious indeed.

P.S. Crumb (?) somehow doesn't look like himself in that picture...
I guess it was taken after he had listened to some "free jazz."
P.P.S. That "Letters of Note" site is a veritable gold mine. Thank you for the link.
 
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A new Crumb exhibition is coming up:

R. CRUMB "ART AND BEAUTY" @ DAVID ZWIRNER, LONDON

Apr 15, 2016 - Jun 02, 2016David Zwirner, London

This April, David Zwirner will present R. Crumb’s inaugural exhibition at the gallery in London, featuring drawings from his Art & Beauty magazines. Initially published in 1996, the artist recently completed the highly anticipated third volume in the series, and the show marks the largest presentation of the project to date.

One of today’s most celebrated illustrators, Crumb helped define the cartoon and punk subcultures of the 1960s and 1970s with comic strips like Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, and Keep on Truckin’. The overt eroticism of his work paired with frequent self-deprecation and a free, almost stream-of-consciousness style have solidified his position as a renowned and influential artist, whose work addresses the absurdity of social conventions and political disillusionment.

Combining iconography from comic books, art history, and popular culture, Art & Beauty portrays a broad selection of images of female figures in diverse settings. The inspiration for the series is linked to Crumb’s avid collecting of vintage underground paraphernalia including records, flipbooks, and specifically, Art & Beauty, a catalogue published during the 1920s and 1930s featuring semi-erotic images of life models for art lovers and aspiring painters—an early example of a top-shelf magazine.

Following a similar format as the older publication, Crumb has selected his own cast of female figures from tabloid celebrities, sport stars, life models, friends, and strangers, and accompanied them with journalistic-style commentary and quotations from other artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Paul Cézanne, and Andy Warhol. The poetic, even philosophical, prose mirrors the romanticized language of the former magazine, but becomes tinged with a subtle sarcasm and self-mockery that destabilizes the relationship between image and caption. Crumb humorously lets his own obsessions and fantasies merge with cultural stereotypes and bigotries from the past and present to create an at once personal and exaggerated typography of women.

In the works from the latest volume, presented here for the first time, Crumb continues to investigate the intersection of art and beauty through drawings based on photographs from magazines, life studies, and in a departure from the earlier issues, camera phone snapshots from city streets and selfies purportedly emailed to the artist. Women close to the artist are prominently featured, including his wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Eden Brower of Eden and John’s East River String Band, a group Crumb often performs with, as are household names such as the tennis player Serena Williams and reality television personality Coco.

An opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 14, 6 – 8 PM.

- There's a gallery in the article showing about 10 of the drawings of women. If you download the drawings you´ll be able to see them in a large format (about 1200 X 1500), so I´ll recommend you do that.

http://www.juxtapoz.com/news/illustration/r-crumb-art-and-beauty-david-zwirner-london/


 
An article on how much Crumb's artwork sells for inc. graphs and pictures of the 10 best selling pieces.


R. Crumb's Top 10 Most Expensive Works at Auction
Henri Neuendorf, Friday, April 15, 2016

As Robert Crumb's inaugural exhibition of drawings from his Art & Beautyseries opens at David Zwirner's London gallery this weekend, we take a closer look at the celebrated illustrator's market, examining how he moved from the realm of comic books to the walls of a blue-chip institution...

https://news.artnet.com/market/robert-crumb-auction-results-at-auction-473981
 
There was a roomful of Crumb original art for sale at some place in New York in the early or mid-90s (I don't remember the name because I just came across it by chance when I was wandering around aimlessly). There was a table full of full page panels (like the Chuck and Bob page in that article that sold for $48,000) and they were all around $1000, $1250. Some of those hand painted life-sized versions of his characters were there (one was just propped up out on the sidewalk to let you know what was inside), I don't remember what they were selling those for but it couldn't have been more than a few grand...

I didn't buy anything because I thought it was all too expensive. Ha.

I guess the market for his work has changed a bit.
 
the market for all original art has gotten ridiculous.

i remember going to comic conventions in the 70's and 80's and you could get original comic art for under $100 dollars for a page.

some of that stuff sells for 10's and 100's of thousands of dollars now.

if i'd only known back then...
 
I didn't buy anything because I thought it was all too expensive. Ha.

Damn! Even at the prices it sells for now it´ll probably be a good investment because prices in the art world always go up and never down. A page from one of Crumb's comics that sells for 50k today might well cost 50-100% more 20 years from now, if not sooner.

I guess the market for his work has changed a bit.

The market for original comic book artwork is booming because collecting it has now become popular among comic book collectors. That was´nt the case 10-15 years ago. Now there's several shops all over the world making a living off selling artwork only, both online and in actual shops.

if i'd only known back then...

Same here! And it's still a good investment, even with the current prices, but now the artwork is too expensive for the average wage slave to invest in. Damn!
 

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