Crumbs Covered in the Times
There’s a great article and multimedia slideshow on cartoon couple Roberta and Aline Crumb:
“They moved to France 16 years ago, sickened, they said, by the infiltration of their once sleepy California town, Winters, by newcomers who bulldozed hilltops for McMansions. The Crumbs also wanted to shield their daughter, Sophie, from a growing conservative and fundamentalist Christian influence while continuing to educate her in what they consider the classics. They reared her on “Little Lulu” comics from the 1940s and ’50s and Three Stooges videos.
It was Mr. Crumb’s absorption of such popular culture that led to his signature style. He applied a lowbrow, all but forgotten crosshatched technique to a kaleidoscope of sexual fantasies, controversial racial topics and images of the hippy counterculture. In so doing, he laid the groundwork for adult-theme graphic novels, influencing everyone from Daniel Clowes, the creator of “Ghost World,” to Art Spiegelman, the author of “Maus.”
“He’s a monolithic presence, who rewrote the rules of what comics are,” Mr. Spiegelman said.”