Jeremy Eaton wrote up the big Crumb show here in town for the Beacon Hill News. Nice piece, better than any of the major media coverage I've seen.

Over at the Stranger's website, our own Ellen Forney has teamed up with the Stranger's Kelly O to talk about the R. Crumb show that just opened at the Frye Museum here in Seattle. I haven't had a chance to listen yet, but I will be listening and so should you. 

I could go on and on about how great the Crumb exhibition is, but simply put, it might be the greatest comic art exhibition I've ever seen and if you like comics enough to read this blog and are anywhere near Seattle, you're out of your mind if you don't make a special trip to the Frye in the next two months.  

And speaking of Forney, we have this to look forward to next Saturday, Feb. 9:

Visiting our office earlier today:

"Seeing that exhibit silenced a gong that's been ringing in my head for 45 years." 

Our Eric Reynolds made the scene at the Frye Museum for the gala opening of "R. Crumb's Underground" and has the photos to prove it -- click here for the whole set on Flickr.

I also uploaded a few of Eric's photos from Ellen Forney's talk at Comixtravaganza -- see those here.

I just picked up this neat little book that I hadn't heard a thing about: The Conversation Series Vol. 1: R. Crumb & Hans Ulrich Obrist. I've only just started reading; it's small, 50-page chapbook featuring the transcript of an interview conducted with Crumb in Paris a couple years ago by the curator and editor Hans Ulrich Obrist. I'm only five pages in, but I can already recommend it, beginning as it does with a great discussion about the sorry state of contemporary architecture and how we got here. It's somehow reassuring to know that Paris is just as fucked as my neighborhood in Seattle when it comes to tearing down history so we can have more soulless condo complexes and big box retailers.

The New Yorker has announced a contest inviting cartoonists to design their own version of the magazine's mascot, Eustice Tilly (originally designed in 1925 by Rea Irvin for the very first issue). My favorite Tilly probably has to be the above Crumb version, which was perceived as a blasphemous betrayal of the mag's proud tradition by some of its more calcified subscribers when originally published in 1994. Now it's a decade and a half later and folks like Crumb, Aline Kominsky, Chris Ware (see his Tilly below), Adrian Tomine, and Daniel Clowes are fairly regular contributors to the mag. Mouly and Spiegelman, what hath thou wrought?!

Via Spurge come some record-breaking auction results: Charles Schulz's original art for the Sunday, April 10, 1955 Peanuts strip recently sold for $113,525, and Robert Crumb's original cover of Mr. Natural #1 sold in the same auction for $101,575, the first time either artist has cleared 6 figures.

For about 0.025% of its sale price, that same Schulz strip can be had, along with 730 others, in The Complete Peanuts 1955-1956. Just saying.

Texans can buy Tony Millionaire a drink or have him sign your books this Saturday, December 1st, from 3 to 6 pm. (Austin Books & Comics, 5002 N. Lamar Blvd., Austin, TX 78751.) And, yes, his Drinky Crow Show is in the works with new characters being developed and churned out of the Transylvanian Animation Factory as I type.


The insurance company was a bit put off by the condition of the offices here at Fantagraphics so we've been cleaning up. In the process this placemat sketch from R. Crumb was discovered. I've included a detail of, yes, Robert Crumb's drawing of a Pokemon (presumably one in the possession of Gary's son, Conrad).

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Mystic Funnies #2 (New Printing)
by Robert Crumb

NEW PRINTING! The second installment of Robert Crumb's latest series centers on an unfortunate everyman named "The Moron" in "Bad Karma," an epic quest for the answer to the question "What's it all mean??" Also starring "Fairy Godmother" and "Mr. Natural," who wants to talk to you about the power of the media, man.

32-page black & white comic $4.95

Order Now!