Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life

"A definitive and ideal biography--pound for pound, one of the sleekest and most judicious I've ever read." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times

A critical darling, Crumb is the first biography of Robert Crumb--one of the most profound and influential artists of the 20th century--whose frank, and meticulously rendered cartoons and comics inspired generations of readers and cartoonists, from Art Spiegelman to Alison Bechdel.

Robert 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. Now, for the first time, Dan Nadel, delivers a "gripping and essential account" (The Boston Globe) of how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact.

Braiding biography with "cultural history and criticism...that honors the complexity of [its] subject, even, perhaps particularly, when it gets ugly" (Los Angeles Times), Crumb is the story of a richly complex life at the forefront of both the underground and popular cultures of post-war America. Including forty-five stunning black-and-white images throughout and a sixteen-page color insert featuring images both iconic and obscure, 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 Robert Crumb blazed through it all.

Written with Crumb's cooperation, this fascinating, rollicking book takes in seven decades of Crumb's iconic works, including Fritz the Cat, Weirdo, and his adaptation of The Book of Genesis and "floats Crumb on the rapids of his times" (Harper's Magazine), capturing, in the process, the essence of an extraordinary artist.

Author: Dan Nadel
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Published: 04/15/2025
Pages: 480
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.65lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.60d
ISBN: 9781982144005


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2025
Publishers Weekly 03/03/2025
Booklist 04/01/2025 pg. 13
Shelf Awareness 04/26/2025
Library Journal 05/30/2025 pg. 1

About the Author
Dan Nadel is the Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings and Prints at The Whitney Museum of American Art. 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. 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. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his family.