Robert Crumb. 1971. [Cover]. The Last Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog, March. Also published as an edition of The Realist.Crumb takes this cover assignment for a "Last Supplement" and makes it a "Last Supper". The Whole Earth Catalog was a counterculture publication launched in the 1960s and this was ostensibly supposed to be its last supplement. Different period stereotypes are present in the colorful drawing, with a purple border at top, a yellow background in the middle and again purple at the bottom. Christ is identified by a yellow halo but the person offering wisdom is long time Crumb character Mr. Natural. There is an oversize African woman, dressed in a tribal skirt that offers a contrast to the other male figures. An orange furred animal is in front of a businessman in a blue suit with a long nose. At one end of the table sits a slick man with a yellow peace medallion around his neck but with a cloud thought containing a dollar sign. A hippie lies stoned on the floor, most likely a victim of the contents of the still smoking pipe in front of him. Another participant has just flown backwards in his chair in the left of the drawing. There is a political overtone with graffiti calling to "FREE BOBBY, ANGELA, JOHN, ALL OTHERS" scrawled on the right wall and "OFF OUR BACKS & the Pig" written on the back of the tee-shirt of the person with their back to the viewer in the center of the drawing. There is also a light-bulb headed caricature holding a rifle standing guard in the lower right. Crumb himself is in the drawing, seated with his head hunched down and back to his in the wooden chair on the right. The lyrics from a Beach Boys song round out the socio-cultural milieu of period. Crumb is acknowledged in the "Drawn by R. "Southpaw" Crumb text at the bottom left; in some versions, his last name was chopped off when the cover was printed.
