1985. Hinckle. Free At Last. Cardboard. 21 1/8" X 13 3/4". Signed "R. Crumb" lower right.
An unusual Crumb piece: a cardboard poster that slots into a
newspaper rack. Warren Hinckle was a San Francisco journalist who had a column in the Examiner. He had written a series of articles critical of the SF police and then mayor Dianne Feinstein. A few days after Hinckle penned an article about the arrest of porn star Marilyn Chambers during constant raids on the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Street Theater, he was arrested for walking his basset hound, Bentley, without a leash.
A humorous critique of excessive police force. Hinckle is dragged off by three big cops. He cuts an amusing character with his eye patch and long hair. The lines radiating from his head make a halo-like effect, creating a kind of St. Hinckle. His dog Bentley is also carried away. The drawing effectively expresses the ridiculousness of three beefy cops dragging away a harmless journalist and his dog, a microcosm of the widespread resentment felt by the counterculture against authority and the police.
For related information see the Wild Dog poster.
