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 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. Robert himself has been done several works adapted from things he and Charles did as children, as well as telling stories about Charles himself in Robert's own comics.
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. 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. After Charles committed suicide, 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 narrator 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)