By: Robert Crumb Publisher: Last Gasp Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Last Gasp Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 80 Publication Date: 2000-01
One of Crumb's three passions Crumb has got to be one of the most confessional artists of all time, and certainly the most confessional artist ever in his chosen genre. In both interviews and art, he not only relates the external facts of his life but also turns his id inside-out. The three passions of his life, he's said, are sex, music, and his art, and all three of them get intertwined in both his personal life and his work.
My Troubles with Women is a collection that especially speaks to the first passion. Crumb fans know he's attracted to large, firm women, that he has what might be described as a foot and leg fetish (as a child he would latch himself onto the legs of his mother's friends), and an incredibly creative fantasy life that involves sexual attraction to such extravagances as vulture-women. (The interview in D.K. Holm's R. Crumb: Conversations entitled "Creme de la Crumb," pp. 141-57, is especially instructive.) But fans also know that Crumb's autobiographical art, while honestly portraying sexual fantasies, poke fun at the artist.
So in "If I Were King," Crumb goes on a fantasy spree, imagining all the women he could have as a powerful monarch--but the monarch is still nerdy, hollow-chested, creepy Crumb. In "Dirty Laundry Comics," he pokes fun at his aging body and its never-ceasing desire for sex, and also worries about the effects his comics will have on his daughter. In "Memories Are made of This" and "Footsey," Crumb recalls youthful bittersweet sexcapades: his sexual frustrations in high school, his rather predatory dating routines as a young man. And in the eponymous "My Troubles with Women," Crumb recounts more sexual adventures, but also highlights a period of impotence in his mid-30s.
As usual, the artwork is fantastic, and the storylines interesting and thoughtful (although the three stories done in collaboration with Aline Kominsky, as other reviewers have pointed out, aren't quite successful). Throughout, Crumb's honesty is both appealing and, for some, off-putting. What I find so fascinating and good about Crumb's work is his uninhibited ability to expose his deepest fantasies to the light of day. All of us have 'em. But almost none of us will own them. Wonder why that is?
Pretty Good This is a fun book for R. Crumb fans. Not a overall view of his work and most of this can be found in some of his other collections. But if you are a hardcore fan you should have this one as well.
hilariously revolting and splendidly non-PC In the heart of every man, I suspect, lies at least a bit of adolescent misogyny. I grew up reading Crumb, who hit the scene right as my adolescence was beginning. Crumb gets the alienation that non-jock boys feel in this society of the young, and wraps absolutely wonderful and hilarious stories around these issues. And he graphically portrays sex in the most unsparing terms, verging on the truly grotesque. Then there is his taste for steatopaegic women!!
This collection is perhaps his best: his humor, his ongoing anger at women, and his strange (and ultimately supremely satisfied) tastes come through in a way no one else could do it. The first story is the best, long on autobiography and utterly hilarious. From an inhibited and unpopular boy, stardom in the underground comic revolution catapulted Crumb into the rank of superstar counter cultural artists. I believe that he deserves his fame, as his vision is dark and unique and perfectly realized in his work. SO with this fame, he goes about experimenting on the women who now fawn on him, after rejecting him. He loves them and despises them and mistreats them, all while realizing the emptiness of his game. The following stories really don't tell us anything new, but they are still awfully funny and outstandingly worth the read.
There are also the comics done in cooperation with his wife, which simply lack the tightness of his writing in the solo pieces. Her drawing style is seriously inferior to his, but there is no question that they share a vision and that this is a new departure in his work, more realistic but also satirical - it covers married life that is strange and "cute as a bug's ear". It is funny and playful, if not quite a 5-star performance. Moreover, some of the material is recycled from older Crumb, which fans would notice.
Needless to say, women do not appreciate his deliciously lascivious cynicism about their part of the species. They see him as pathetic and misogynous, and they are right in their own way. But men get what he is saying, in all its cruel detail. Sure, it is pretty adolescent, but as Hughes said in the film, he really is a modern-day Hieronymous Bosch.
Crumb! I think it is useful to have seen the documentary "Crumb", to enjoy his work. He is an amazingly confessional artist who has turned his own obsessions and fantasies into a an amazing career. It doesn't get any better than that.
Great Introduction to Crumb This was the first Crumb comic collection I have purchased. I had read about him for years, I always had it on the backburner to get some of his stuff, but never got around to it. I made a mistake in waiting, but it was worth the wait. Crumb is the rare combination of great storyteller and artist. I have the feeling I will read this collection several times, the first time to enjoy the stories, and the next several consecutive times to absorb the great artwork. 'My Troubles With Women' documents Crumbs sexual 'proclivities' from a young lad riding women's legs, high school crushes on Amazonian girls that other boys called 'fat', to comic groupies that Crumb lives out all his thick thighs/bubble butt fantasies with. It's all terribly interesting stuff. The only low point in this collection is the inclusion of comics that were collaboration with his wife. His wife's forte is not comics, maybe she is an artist, but this is not her medium. Her drawings are flat and uninspired when compared to Crumb's style. Plus the dialog is ham handed and boring. It was a real chore trying to slog through these pages. I guess the "...troubles with Women" include the wife, but the husband and wife stuff seems out of place in this collection.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
