The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 1: The Early Years of Bitter Struggle (Expanded Softcover Ed.)
by
Robert Crumb
208-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $24.99
ISBN:
978-1-60699-558-7
This long out-of-print first volume of the multiple Harvey and Eisner award- winning
Complete Crumb Comics
series has been one of our most demanded reprints. Now, this landmark
volume of Robert Crumb’s formative years not only returns, but also
boasts a major discovery not included in prior editions: a
never-before-published, 60 page “home-made”
Arcade comic from 1962.
Growing up, Robert and his
brother Charles often created their own comic books. These “home-made”
editions were usually produced in editions of one. As such, many have
been lost to time or private collections. What hasn’t comprises much of
the first two volumes of The Complete Crumb series. Their
creation continued throughout the 1950s and into the early ’60s and
eventually the content of Crumb’s work gradually matured from the
light-hearted, funny animal antics of earlier years to stories that
flashed signals of what we now recognize as “true Crumb.”
This previously undiscovered
Arcade “issue,” from May,
1962, shows many flashes of where Crumb was heading (whereas Charles
had all but abandoned drawing comics by the ’60s). The 17-page strip
“Jim” is the most emotionally-charged work of Crumb’s young life to
that point, a gentle and psychologically astute look at a boy who
needs a mother, and also brimming with signs of his increasing
frustration with Catholicism. It also features the first quintessential
“Crumb girl,” Mabel.
This volume also includes several early Fritz the Cat stories
(a.k.a. “Animal Town Comics”), and the classic “Treasure Island Days”
(as seen in the
Crumb film) and is rounded out with other
strips, diary entries and sketches that will be a treasure trove for
Crumb fans, all defining work from Crumb’s formative years as a
cartoonist, spanning the years 1958-1962 (when Crumb was ages 15-19)
and featuring material from other “home-made” comics of the era. This
is Ground Zero for a man who may well be the greatest cartoonist who
ever lived.
