Orpheus Books

Robert Crumb. 1981. Orpheus Books. White plastic shopping bag. Around 16 by 9 inches (excluding handle). Adapted from an illustration in Winds of Change, Vol. II No. 11 (June 1981) p. 13 (see Odds & Ends, 1981 page).

“Dear Michael,
I received you letter, today; thank you! I will send out your Winds of Change in the morning. I also included one of my old bags from my bookstore. I used to have a physical shop, and that's where I met Robert Crumb. I instantly liked him... This was 30 years ago, and we are still in touch... Anyhow, he did the drawing on my bag; he actually drew it for an ad in Winds of Change, and I liked it so much that I asked him if I could use it on my bags and business cards, and he gladly consented... I saved several of the bags... so...........................................it's yours to keep. I have the original drawing in a frame, above my kitchen table/work area.
Regards,
Robert Liebman Orpheus Books

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.

Factory

Robert Crumb. 1979. "Factory." Cover for CoEvolution Quarterly, #24, Winter 1979/80.

A controversial cover. The next issue reported 91 letters about the cover-41 against, 31 for and 19 mixed.

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.

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".