Information on R. Crumb, Founder of the Underground Comics Movement

Robert Dennis Crumb, mostly known as R. Crumb, was a founder of the underground comics movement and is widely known by many if not all underground comic lovers. Many view him as the one responsible for the breakthrough of underground comics.

R.Crumb was born on August 30, 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. If you watch the Terry Zwigoff documentary 'Crumb', you will realize that he definitely grew up in an unhappy family, surrounded by artistic siblings. His older brother Charles Crumb was a huge comic book lover, and encouraged Robert to draw endless comic books as a child and a teenager. They even produced a comic book called FOO and would try to sell them door to door in their neighborhood. Later on, his brother gave up drawing but Robert kept drawing.

In the early 1960's Crumb relocated to Cleveland, Ohio to live with a friend who was a writer. There he designed greeting cards for the American Greetings corporation. He also made friends with a couple bohemians, and one of the girls introduced him to his future first wife, Dana Morgan Crumb. At this time, Crumb became friends with Mad Magazine creator Harvey Kurtzman, and contributed early Fritz the Cat strips to Kurtzman's magazine: Help! Crumb received numerous positive reactions and encouragement to keep at it.

In 1967, Crumb moved to San Francisco, California, and published his first issue of the Zap Comix in early 1968. It was a huge success. In Zap, Crumb drew stories that were sexually and politically outrageous, and soon attracted a number of other artists who wanted to contribute. Zap then became a comic full of stories drawn by various artists. He then began to do cover artwork for various bands, such as Janis Joplin. In the 1980's Crumb began Weirdo, which was one of the most influential underground comic anthology. He was the first editor but even after he stepped down from the position he still had a story for every issue and would often do the covers.

In 1994, the Crumb documentary was a huge hit and produced a massive count of new fans from the new generation. In the mid 1990's, Crumb traded six of his sketch books for a house in the small town of Sauve in France, where he lived with his wife, Aline Konminsky-Crumb, who was also a well-known underground cartoonist, and their daughter Sophie. He also had a son, Jessie Crumb, with his first wife Dana. Both children are comic artists as well.

The name R. Crumb will always be mentioned whenever somebody discusses the history of the underground comic movement, and he will never be forgotten.