Charles Crumb | |
---|---|
Born | 1942 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Died | February 1993 (aged 50–51) Philadelphia |
Occupation | Artist |
Parent(s) | Charles and Beatrice Crumb |
Charles Vincent Crumb, Jr. (1942 - February 1993[1]) was an American cartoonist, artist and the brother of 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. Charles was obsessed with comics as a child and would draw them every moment he could. He forced his brothers to do the same and even founded a club with the rest of the family. He was interested in very odd games as a child and suffered throughout his life from his cruel family upbringing and his entire adolescence. He was beaten quite often as a child by his father and by the other children at the school who made him sort of an outcast.
As Charles entered adulthood he began showing signs of mental illness, due to what he himself described as his "homosexual pedophiliac tendencies". As a teenager he had already developed a particular obsession for Bobby Driscoll, child star of the film Treasure Island, and much of his artwork focused on themes and characters from the film and novel. According to his own testimony, Charles Crumb never succumbed to his urges and remained determined not to. Perhaps that was why he became a recluse. Throughout the years, he remained constantly terrified that his sexual tendencies could be discovered by his mother, or by anyone.[2]
During his adult life, he never left his family home and rarely ventured outside of it, where he lived with his mother. At this point his artwork exhibited 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 some of his work are featured prominently. His artwork, including notebooks filled with tiny gestural marks that suggest handwriting, has been published and exhibited, sometimes in the context of outsider art. His mother threw out a great deal of his artwork as she thought "no one would be interested in it."
In the film Crumb, R. Crumb describes how Charles would often react to things by saying "How perfectly goddamned delightful it all is, to be sure." It was a catch-phrase of his. Robert remarks, "Whenever he said that, it always took the wind out of my sails."
Charles Crumb committed suicide in February 1993.[1] He reportedly died as a result of an overdose.[1] The producer of the film, David Lynch himself said that he thought to cast Charles in one of his movies.
"Crumb" was dedicated to his memory.
External reviews
Sources consulted
Notes
- ^ a b c Entertainment Weekly article: "R. Crumb's Family Circus."
- ^ Robert Crumb, Maxon Crumb (edited by), Crumb comics: the whole family is crazy!, Last Gasp, 1998, pp. 29-33
References
- Crumb (Terry Zwigoff, 1994)
- Crumb Family Comics (Last Gasp, 1997)
- The Complete Crumb Comics (Fantagraphics, 1997–2005)
- Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me: Robert Crumb Letters 1958-1977 (Fantagraphics, 1998)