High Times

Robert Crumb. "High Times Interviews R. Crumb." High Times. November 1977.

Crumb is interviewed by the pro-marijuana magazine High Times. What makes it unique is that the interview is shown as a colored comic strip.

WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE!!

Robert Crumb. "Woodman, Spare That Tree!!" Cover for Fox River Patriot. No. 19 (August 24- September 13, 1977). Format: 32 pages, 11.5 x 17 inch tabloid style newspaper, folded to 8 3/4 x 11.5 inch cover size.

Fox River Patriot was an alternative paper from central Wisconsin co-founded by Crumb colleague Denis Kitchen. According to Crumb, it was one of his favorite papers:

“...a great little local newspaper of exceptional vision is the Fox River Patriot...reading the Fox River Patriot makes me want to move to Wisconsin ...The best local rural-type of paper I know of...”—R. Crumb, The CoEvolutionary Quarterly, Spring 1979, p. 80

This is a colored variation of the original black and white version on the cover of the February 1973 issue of The Mendocino Grapevine which was later made into a 50 edition print in 2007.

Voluntary Simplicity

Crumb, R. 1977. "Voluntary Simplicity" [Front & back cover]. CoEvolution Quarterly, Summer 1977 No. 14.

The first of two covers done for the Whole Earth spin-off publication The CoEvolution Quarterly. A bright happy homage to women & simplicity (theme of the issue). The orange yellow background adds to the brightness; stylistically the background has three horizontal bands (one third orange, one third yellow and the bottom third brown solid) typical of some other Crumb covers (e.g., The Last Supplement). The front cover features typical big limb Crumb women planting seeds, looking up towards the sun, smiling. The exuberance is contagious and the fertility symbolism on the front cover heavy with females, seeds, planting.
The back cover is men, stereo-typed farmers with baseball hats dancing & entranced by the women on the front. Crumb is being carried off on the back of one of the men heading towards the left, his back to us.
Crumb creates a fine sense of motion through the seeds being thrown through the air, the women slightly off-balance or skipping and the men in their funky dance position. The color, the motion, the cartoon quality and the theme combine to reinforce the happy feeling. Quite unlike many of Crumb's other covers which tend to be somber, questioning, critical and dark.