Reading today’s LA Times: Crumby coverage
Above are three self-portraits of Robert Crumb, as a four-year-old, an adolescent, and today.
Accompanying these illustrations in today’s Los Angeles Times Opinion section is an odd little piece written by his wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb. Click here to see it; if you want to see the full versions of these cropped images, registration is required. Here is the entirety of the text:
As a child, my husband, Robert, already felt like an alienated old man (top left). He longed for the past, never having actually known what he was nostalgic for. It was as if he were born in the wrong time. He never felt part of the contemporary culture. You can see the roots of his alienation already beginning.
You can see from this drawing (middle) how out of sync Robert was — awkward, sensitive, nerdy. He was destined to suffer the cruelties of the outsider — especially in Southern California in the 1950s, where surfers and beach bunnies were the mode.
This image (right) is reflective of Robert as a mature artist — someone who has an eye for capturing himself with total honesty and has finally honed his scathing critique of modern society. We see the artist here in his pajamas at home. He has nothing to hide; it is all there.
Like most things about the LA Times, this baffles me.
(First, a few other things that baffle me about the Times:
- Why doesn’t the newspaper that is situated in the entertainment capitol of the world have far better entertainment coverage than we get in Calendar — and for God’s sake, why is the writing in that section so deadly dull?
- Why doesn’t the paper of record for the nation’s second-largest city have a metro section (rather than a “California” section)?
- Why can’t the paper settle on a font? It doesn’t seem to be a problem for other newspapers — or even for me.
- Why is it so riddled with errors? I have on file my favorite example: the day that the bottom half of Calendar Page 2 was advertising, and the top half was corrections. Other days have only come close to that achievement. Let us never forget the day they announced on page one the death of Allen Ginsberg, probably the most important American poet of the past 50 years — and misspelled his name.
I could go on in this vein, but I’ve already surpassed “a few.”)
What baffles me about this piece is that a) I don’t know what it’s doing in the Opinion section because it doesn’t offer an opinion about anything, and b) I just can’t figure out what prompted it. Is Crumb in the news and I missed it?
November 23rd, 2006 at 8:50 am
Can’t say much about your local newsrag, as I’ve never read it. But we have The Atlantic City Press, known for having more corrections than articles.
The funny thing about the R. Crumb self-portraits and A. Crumb comments is that, if you didn’t know who he was, you might not see any of what she does in the art. I looked about the same as a kid and someday, many years from now, may even look old like he does today. Many years from now.
I’ve followed Crumb’s art since he was in a Philadelphia underground paper, Yarrowstalks, and putting out the early issues of Zap. I remember, several years later, seeing a greeting card with his art on it, thinking I should buy it, and then deciding that it was too expensive. Mr. Frugal strikes again.
Last week I re-read his old Comics Journal interview from 1988. And of course I’ve seen the excellent movie, “Crumb”. I love his art. Most of his quirks seem to come from his early home life and whatever strange brain chemistry runs in his family. I’m glad he has found some measure of peace.
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