Happy birthdays and Famous Artists
Happy birthday to one of my favorite comics artists, Robert Crumb, who is 68 today. The New York Times has a great feature that will essentially build you an online newspaper devoted to a particular topic, so if you’d like to learn a whole lot more about R. Crumb all at once, click here. The latest news about Crumb is his recent withdrawal from an art festival in Australia, for fear that he was going to be attacked by crazed feminists.
Re the birthday boy, and specifically a topic addressed in the biography “Crumb,” my good friend Joe Stafford sent this note:
The thing I always think about are those hilarious entry blanks Crumb (or was it his brother?) used to send to Art Instruction Schools. [Note from Lee: It was both Robert and brother Charles who did this.] Mind you, I’m not making fun of the School, but the entry blanks they sent were dirty, funny; filled in exactly the way anyone with a sense of humor and real artistic talent would [do].
Joe adds, in a PS:
They used to have you draw Tippy….
[And here’s Tippy:]
…but now all you have to draw is this guy:
Well, as they say, everyone has a doppelganger. I think we’ve found Tippy’s. It’s Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
August 31st, 2011 at 8:02 am
Hilarious and also sad that anyone who draws and writes with adherence to masters of the past, has to live in the “South of France” to stay safe. Not that there’s anything wrong with the South of France, mind you. But with the lineup of anti-science nutjobs among the GOP hopefuls, telling anything close to the truth may become against the law. One look at his work on illustrating The Book of Genesis, you find an interest in keeping to the letter of the words, and you’d see that the man is a truth-teller. Which as we all know, is liable to bring some of us to thoughts of homicide. Stay safe Mr. C.
September 1st, 2011 at 1:21 am
McConnell/Tippy: Somehow I’d rather have Tippy in congress. Or maybe just a wet piece of cardboard.
September 4th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
I remember Robert Williams, the artist who started Juxtapoz magazine, saying that there were ideas he would never turn into pictures because of possible feminist reactions. I don’t know if they would ‘attack’ but I can understand the artists’ feelings. Anyway, happy birthday to Bob.