Description: "'Crumb' by Dan Nadel explores the life of Robert Crumb, a pioneering artist who transformed the comics medium into a space for adult expression and helped shape 20th-century American culture. Known for creating the underground comic book industry and iconic works like Fritz the Cat and Zap Comix, Crumb's life story is marked by childhood abuse, early fame, and his unique role in both underground and mainstream cultures. The book delves into Crumb's complex family life, the rise of underground comics in the 1960s, the counterculture, and the challenges of the hippie dream. With forty-five black-and-white images and a sixteen-page color insert, the biography traces seven decades of Crumb's work, revealing the essence of his extraordinary artistic journey"--
Brief description: Dan Nadel is the Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His previous books include, It's Life as I See It: Black Cartoonists in Chicago, 1940-1980; Peter Saul: Professional Artist Correspondence, 1945-1976; and Art Out of Time: Unknown Comic Visionaries, 1900-1969. Nadel has curated exhibitions for galleries and museums internationally. He is the founder of PictureBox, a publishing and packaging company that produced over one hundred books, objects, and zines from 2000 to 2014, including the Grammy Award-winning design for Wilco's 2004 album A Ghost Is Born. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his family.
Review Quotes: "Dan Nadel brings his singularly tilted perspective to the most monolithic visual prankster of the last century, walking us deep into the epicenter of R. Crumb's complex world. With empathy, wisdom, and a profound ability to situate the artist within the political and social realities that formed him, this book will stand tall next to the great biographies as a window into the counterculture at the moment we need it most. A witty, wise and unusual writer, Nadel upcycles the rags of American history to craft something boldly new, about a man who is both omnipresent and utterly unknown."
--Lena Dunham
--Kai Bird, co-author of Pulitzer Prize-winning American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer "There's no better guide through the rough, raw underworld of R. Crumb than Dan Nadel. A definitive account that reads like an intimate memoir, Crumb's scenic history of counterculture cartooning in America contains the same propulsive energy and vivid details as its subject."
--Prudence Peiffer, author of The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever "The intimacy of Robert Crumb's work has fascinated me for more than half my life. Every artist should read this book!"
--KAWS "This is a great biography that explores the complexity of one of the world's greatest cartoonists ever."
--Art Spiegelman, author of Maus "Before you know it, Dan has nimbly and enjoyably laid out the entire guts of five decades of the life and work of Crumb. Crumb's work is realer than real and Dan lets it live as it was and is."
--Bill Callahan, author of Letters to Emma Bowlcut