Crumb

The documentary Crumb delves even deeper into the mind and life of Robert Crumb, which is pretty impressive given how personal his comics are. Crumb is really very transparent in conversation and his hatred for most of humanity shows through. Even though he is so critically acclaimed he still doesn't really fit into his audience. He really doesn't fit in anywhere. Most people seems to treat him more as a peculiar specimen to be wondered at than to actually genuinely interact with. I think this is why Crumb says that he doesn't think that he has ever really been in love. People his whole life, even as he is famous, treat him like a kaleidoscope. They only look and pay attention to him to see the raw deep part of humanity that they are afraid to dig and see inside themselves.

In most families, Crumb would probably be the outcast or the odd one out, but out of the Crumnb family the documentary shows he seems to be the most well off. In fact, a lot of this documentary focuses on his older brother Charles. Much of the documentary seems to talk about the lost potential of Charles Crumb. Robert talks about how Charles was more clever and funny than he was when they were kids and was the head of their family comic club, but even though Charles seemed to be the one destined to be more successful he became a recluse. He became victim of his own depression and hatred of humanity and became a recluse that was jealous of Robert to the point of homicidal thoughts. In my opinion, if Charles had a similar liberating experience as Robert did with the LSD he might have been more functional. Robert had the benefit of being able to let out all of his pent up feelings and frustrations through comics, completely uncensored, which I really think is the only thing that kept him from the same fate as Charles.

Crumb admits that while a lot of people found his cartoons hilarious he initially found them nightmarish. In one of the interviews with one of his past girlfriends she talks about how she thought that he was kidding about being turned on by the things he drew and Crumb laughs and says he's not kidding around. I think that is why Crumb initially found his work horrifying because he was forced to confront his subconscious desires head on and accept that he thought of these things himself, which of most are considered deeply disturbing or taboo by most of society. Confronting your own true desires is scary and I think that is what is at the heart of his work. It's all about coming to terms with your own desires, prejudices, and fears in a society that tries to oppresses them so vehemently.