Dan Nadel presents the first biography of Robert Crumb — one of the most profound and influential artists of the 20th century — whose iconic, radically frank, and meticulously rendered cartoons and comics inspired generations of readers and cartoonists, from Art Spiegelman to Alison Bechdel. Crumb spans the pressures of 1950s suburban America and Crumb’s highly dysfunctional early family life; the history of comics and graphic satire; 20th century popular music; the world of the counterculture; the birth of underground comic books in 1960s San Francisco with Crumb’s Zap Comix; the economic challenges and dissolution of the hippie dream; and the path Crumb blazed through it all.

Crumb is often credited with single-handedly transforming the comics medium into a place for adult expression, in the process pioneering the underground comic book industry and transforming the vernacular language of 20th-century America into an instantly recognizable and popular aesthetic, as iconic as Walt Disney or Charles Schulz. Now, for the first time, Dan Nadel (written with Crumb’s cooperation) shares how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact.

This fascinating, rollicking book takes in seven decades of Crumb’s iconic works, including Fritz the Cat, Weirdo, and his final book-length comic, The Book of Genesis, capturing, in the process, the essence of an extraordinary artist and his times.

About the Author:
Dan Nadel is a writer and curator. His previous books include It’s Life as I See It: Black Cartoonists in Chicago, 1940–1980; Peter Saul: Professional Artist Correspondence, 1945–1976; and Art Out of Time: Unknown Comic Visionaries, 1900–1969. Nadel has curated exhibitions for galleries and museums internationally, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California Davis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He is the founder of PictureBox, a publishing and packaging company that produced over one hundred books, objects, and zines from 2000 to 2014, including the Grammy Award–winning design for Wilco’s 2004 album A Ghost Is Born. Nadel is the curator-at-large for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles. He lives in Brooklyn with his family.

Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan