Charles Vincent Crumb, Jr. (1942-1994) was an American artist closely associated with his famous younger brother, the cartoonist Robert Crumb. Charles often appears as a character in Robert Crumb's comic stories and autobiographical writings; Robert credits Charles' childhood obsession with making comics as the foundation of Robert's own devotion to his art. As Charles entered adulthood he became progressively troubled both emotionally and psychologically and he rarely ventured outside of his family home where he lived with his mother. At this point his artwork took on specific attributes common to the psychologically troubled: repetitive and painstaking concentric lines filling in otherwise normal Crumb-esque drawings, reflecting an obsession with filling every last centimeter of white space.
Charles Crumb and his artwork received wide public attention as a result of the success of the 1994 feature-length documentary film Crumb, in which Charles and his work are featured prominently. Charles Crumb died by suicide before that film was released, and his artwork, including notebooks filled with tiny gestural marks that suggest handwriting, has since been published and exhibited, sometimes in the context of outsider art.