2002-10-12|7:03 p.m.
When I was younger my dad gave me a box of old comics that were his in the early seventies. A lot of them were old superman comics and such. However, there was one comic I always wondered if my dad knew was in there when he gave me it. It was Robert Crumb�s �Big Ass� issue. At the time, I had no idea who Robert Crumb was or anything about his controversial comics. Or, that it was worth some money to underground comic collectors.
I was just shocked to find what was inside. The big asses were there as it promised along with a lot of other nudity. Of course, true to his image, the comic was incredibly sexist. The image of women was displayed as either gargantuan beasts with big bottoms and beaks that attacked mortal men in hopes for anal sex or they were mindless automatons just asking for a good fuck. I managed to not be warped or anything, my identity as a woman intact. And for a twelve year old girl, it was exciting (I�ll leave that comment at that).
But, after I grew bored of it I packed it up somewhere and I never saw it again.
It wasn�t until last year or so that I was watching the amazing �Crumb,� Terry Zwigoff�s (Ghost World) documentary on the comic book artist, that I saw my issue displayed. I had grown up with the infamous comic book artist and never even known it, linking me with hundreds of thousands of others from the seventies.
It was a pivotal time in my life.
I was glad I saw the documentary. It didn�t sugar coat Crumb in any means. He is a strange pervert with oftentimes grossly insulting images. But, a genius of sorts, nonetheless. I would almost say he is a Dali of the comic world, a world yet to receive its credit as an art form.
For some reason, every time I reach the last intersection to get onto my street and I am waiting for the light to change from red to green to turn, I think of a particularly amazing Crumb piece. Here is �A Short History of America� (you must wait a few seconds, maybe even refresh, to see the animation in its twelve piece entirety):
(If the animation fails to work on your computer you can click here)
I look at my street�s intersection and I think of its possible lifetime. I think of what its early stages were. In some ways, for the past and the nature that was forgone as a cost of human �progress,� I am overcome with loss. In other ways, almost immediately following the feeling of loss, I am set with some calming sort of understanding. These roads, though they have placed death upon the first images of this setting, link me to you. They are the roads that make you and me 121.91 miles way from being near each other. They are the roads that cross the land that would have once made crude barriers to our ability to even look into each other�s faces. They are the roads that link friends.
But, it is more than roads that links us.
We thank you for your art, Crumb.