Despite having one of the best given names of any artist Robert Crumb is also undoubtedly one of America’s best cartoonists. His work is whimsical, freakish, volatile, offensive, crude, off-base, and completely fantastic (in a certain sense). Crumb’s work is so undeniably strange that one is left to imagine what kind of person he is, what his family is like, what his childhood was like, and what kind of drugs he was on. “Crumb” is the painfully revealing documentary with all of those answers. It is part comedy, part tragedy, and much like Crumb’s work, revealing of all the pathos and pure weirdness rumbling under the surface of society. The movie delves deep into Crumb’s brain and pulls out a lot of what makes his art tick. If you aren’t familiar with R. Crumb there are plenty of websites that show off his work and he even runs his own personal/family site. There is a very good biography of Crumb at Salon.com. Do remember though that Crumb’s art can be pretty damn offensive, racist, and misogynistic. He is widely respected but has a distinct dark side that many find unacceptable. With all of the oddity involved in his work you might imagine he is some kind of vulgar weirdo and in a certain sense you would be exactly right, but he is not necessarily what you expect. The documentary is intensely personal and more than a little horrifying (or sad it is hard to tell sometimes).

The 1996 film is directed by Terry Zwigoff, director of Ghost World, Bad Santa, and Art School Confidential (all good films), and it is clearly a low budget affair but in that it is very direct and gets very personal with Crumb and some of his family. It is the sheer uncomfortable strangeness that the viewer is presented with that makes the documentary so appealing and yet somewhat repulsive. One thing you realize when watching the documentary is how intensely personal Crumb is in his drawing and that a lot of the oddity stems directly from his own life and his own fetishes. The level to which Crumb and his family (especially his brothers) open up in front of the camera is fairly startling. One minute Crumb will be musing how a strange unpopular boy somehow became an icon of the 60’s counterculture without ever really fitting into it and in the next scene him and his brother Charles are laughing about an abusive father. What really sets this movie apart from other artist documentaries is the access that Zwigoff is able to obtain to Crumb’s family and friends. The biographical sketch is extremely deep and you get a sense of understanding where Crumb is coming from if not what he is thinking. The movie is definitely worth a watch but I will remind our readers once again that Crumb really has no constraint in what he depicts and a lot of it is silly but there is a definite undercurrent of odd sexual fetishism and some racism. Don’t let it scare you off but be duly warned.