Robert Crumb - Influences and Critical Response

Influences and Critical Response

A peer in the underground comics field, Victor Moscoso, commented about his first impression of Crumb's work, in the mid-1960s, before meeting Crumb in person: "I couldn't tell if it was an old man drawing young, or a young man drawing old." Robert Crumb’s cartooning style has drawn on the work of cartoon artists from earlier generations, including Billy De Beck (Barney Google), C.E. Brock (an old story book illustrator), Gene Ahern’s comic strips, George Baker (Sad Sack), Isadore Freleng's drawings for the early Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes of the 1930s, Sidney Smith (The Gumps), Rube Goldberg, E.C. Segar (Popeye) and Bud Fisher (Mutt and Jeff). Crumb has cited Carl Barks, who illustrated Disney's "Donald Duck" comic books and John Stanley (Little Lulu) as formative influences on his narrative approach, as well as Harvey Kurtzman.

Crumb has also cited his extensive LSD use as a factor that led him to develop his unique style.

After issues 0 and 1 of Zap, Crumb began working with others, of whom the first was S. Clay Wilson. Crumb said, about when he first saw Wilson's work "The content was something like I'd never seen before, ... a nightmare vision of hell-on-earth ...." And "Suddenly my own work seemed insipid...."

Crumb's comic artwork has elicited harsh commentary. Numerous critics cite his pictures of overly sexualized women, often in subservient roles, calling him "the chief sexist of underground comics". Other critics, such as African American cartoonist and author Charles Johnson, claim that Crumb's comics are inherently racist because of their racially stereotyped portrayals of minorities, such as "darky" Afro-Americans. Crumb and his supporters say that the subject is white male attitudes, not the women and minorities themselves.

Crumb remains a prominent figure, as both artist and influence, within the alternative comics milieu. He is hailed as a genius by such comic book talents as Jaime Hernandez, Daniel Clowes, and Chris Ware. In the fall of 2008, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia hosted a major exhibition of his work, which was favorably reviewed in the New York Times and in the Philadelphia Inquirer.