R. CRUMB
Famed image-maker Jean-Paul Goude salutes the rebellious illustrator and reluctant hero of the underground comix era Let’s go back in time, to around 1969 or ’70. I had just arrived from Paris to start my new job at Esquire. Like most of my illustrator friends, I was a devoted fan of Robert Crumb. But unlike those who adored him for the subversive side of his work, for his hippie-icon aura, I worshipped Crumb the artist, the draftsman, the virtuoso, the great dessinateur, regardless of the content of his work. So when Harvey Kurtzman, the king of comics of the ’60s and creator of Little Annie Fanny among other masterpieces of the genre, invited me to an East Village Other draw-in with Robert Crumb, I jumped at the opportunity. A draw-in is a sort of graphic jam session, a sort of relay in which one by one several artists take over a section of one another’s drawings to eventually create a fnished work. Other illustrators and artists such as Barbra Nessim, Alain Lesaux, Spain Rodriguez, Gilbert Sheldon, and Harvey Kurtzman himself, were on hand that night, in the empty art department of the East Village Other. Needless to say, I was very impressed, especially when from the corner of my eye I discovered Robert Crumb in the fesh, bent over the table, which was covered by a large sheet of white paper, his face half an inch from the picture he had just started—with no pencil preparation whatsoever. I was in such awe I felt dizzy. It was like seeing Nijinsky jump in the air or Philippe Petit walk his tightrope between the Twin Towers. I was so overwhelmed that when my turn to draw came, I was paralyzed by shyness and I chickened out miserably. More than thirty years have passed since that night and I have had plenty of time to build up my confdence, but I must confess that if I was given a second chance to draw in the presence of Crumb, I’d chicken out again. Jean-Paul Goude