Review: THE SWEETER SIDE OF R. CRUMB

THE SWEETER SIDE OF R. CRUMB
W.W. NORTON & COMPANY

CARTOONIST: R. Crumb
ISBN: 978-0-393-33371-8; paperback
110pp, B&W, $17.95 U.S., $22.50 CAN

The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb is a 2010 paperback from W.W. Norton & Company that reprints various non-controversial works from the cartoonist and artist, R. Crumb (Robert Crumb). Crumb, the famed Underground Comix creator, has created comix and art that some describe as perverse, crude, cruel, nasty, vile, racist, misogynist, and just plain negative. While I would agree with those sentiments in some examples of his work, I think that American comic books would be worse off without the work of this genius.

Perhaps R. Crumb, a publicist, and/or his publisher decided it was time to show readers a less controversial, more artistic side of Crumb. The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb is a combination art book, portfolio, and sketchbook that offers an array of Crumb drawings that have nothing to do with the busty female revolutionaries, conniving funny animals, weird characters, and horny everyman’s that populate Crumb’s comic book and comix work. Also, the art here is in glorious black and white, the better to show off Crumb’s precision cross hatching and sumptuous, textured ink work.

The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb presents intimate portraits of Crumb’s family and friends as well as drawings of roots music figures – some obscure (Charlie Poole) and some fairly well known (B.B. King). This book offers marvelous landscapes from the French countryside and lovely still life drawings, and even eye-popping depictions of French alleyways and buildings. Many of these drawings may simply be work that Crumb did while quietly observing people or interior and exteriors scenes. There are even a few comic strip vignettes starring Robert and his daughter Sophie as a small child.

I look at The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb as a publication Norton is going to use to pad their R. Crumb catalog. Or maybe people who only know the controversial R. Crumb need a book like this. Even Crumb seems to suggest as much in his introduction to this book, an introduction that only seems partly tongue-in-cheek. As far as I’m concerned, I’m up for anything that will get more people to see R. Crumb’s comix and illustrations. If it means The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb, then, let’s have more.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"

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