Flesh & Blood Comics

Robert Crumb. 2009. "Flesh and Blood Comics" in point d'ironie. October 2008. No. 45. 12 pages. This came out in an art "newspaper" published by French fashion designer agnès b. The editor is Hans-Ulrich Obrist who wrote a book about Crumb. Some 100,000 free copies were distributed around the world in agnès b. boutiques and other locations. There is also a web version.



point d'ironie n°45

War News

Robert Crumb. 1991. [Logo]. War News, March 2.
Crumb designed the logo for an anti-war (first Gulf war) newspaper put out by Warren Hinckle.

Winds of Change

Robert Crumb. 1980. Cover for Winds of Change, Vol. II, No.4 (Oct 1980), 12 pp. Halloween Edition. 17 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches (half that length folded).

Crumb was a regular contributor to the alternative newspaper Winds of Change when he lived in Yolo County in northern California. He did a number of covers as well as illustrations inside the paper and also collaborated on the "Everyday Funnies" comic strip with his wife Aline

“The stuff I do for Winds of Change is my good-boy socially conscious responsible side...”—Robert Crumb. "Down Home Crumb." CoEvolutionary Quarterly. Summer 1982. #34. p. 52 (a two page spread on Winds of Change with various Crumb covers for the newspaper.)

Four Winds of Change covers were reprinted in "The Yolo Portfolio" a 150 signed and numbered portfolio released in 1990. There was also an exhibition of some of the Winds of Change work:

“Robert Crumb may have escaped to France, but Yolo County remembers him. The longtime Winters resident, arguably the 20th-century American cartooning equivalent of Jonathan Swift, was an in-house artist for Winds of Change, a Davis alternative paper that was published from 1979-1983. Some 30 of Crumb’s line drawings, originally done for the paper, are on display through Wednesday, May 15, at Art de Vie, 231 E St., Davis.”⎯Jackson Griffith. Newsreview.com. 2 May 2002.

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.

It's "Red-Tag" Time in the Country

Robert Crumb. 1974. "It's 'Red-Tag' Time in the Country." Cover for The Mendocino Grapevine. 1-15 April 1974. #16. 17 x 11 3/4 inches (half that length folded).

One of two covers Crumb did for The Mendocino Grapevine, a northern California counterculture tabloid. The drawing depicts the heavy-handed force of the authorities closing down hippie communes for supposed state housing violations. This cover is reproduced in Don Fiene's R. Crumb Checklist (p. 39) as well as a book about the alternative press (David Armstrong, A Trumpet To Arms, p. 200). The other Grapevine cover (see Odds & Ends, 1972 page) Crumb did was also reproduced as a color version for the Fox River Patriot and was also made into an etching.

I obtained this copy of the Grapevine from photographer Nicholas Wilson. He has published photos he took in the 70s in a beautiful book, Mendocino in the Seventies, which he kindly signed. The photos provide a nice context for the Grapevine period. A photo of two cops on page 65 reinforces the Grapevine cover theme; they had come to close down a rock festival based on a new county ordinance. To order the book: http://www.nwilsonphoto.com/book.htm


Nicholas Wilson. 2006. Mendocino in the Seventies. Published by Nicholas Wilson. Signed "For Michael - Nicholas Wilson".