Crumb

If I don't draw for a while, I get really crazy.

I start feeling really, like, depressed and suicidal if I don't get to draw.

But then some nights when I'm drawing, I feel suicidal too, so —

What are you trying to get at in your work?

Jesus.

I don't know.

I don't work in terms of conscious messages. I can't do that.

It has to be something that I'm revealing to myself while I'm doing it...

which is hard to explain.

Which means that while I'm doing it, I don't know exactly what it's about.

You just have to have the — the courage or the —

to take that chance, you know.

What's gonna come out? What's coming out of this?

I enjoy drawing. That's all.

It's a deeply ingrained habit. It's all because of my brother Charles.

Hello, Mother? I'm in Philadelphia.

I'm gonna give a talk at the — at the art school downtown tomorrow.

So Terry and this film crew are here with me.

So, um, they'd like to come over and drop me off there...

and talk to — possibly to Charles...

about maybe filming him if you're not up —

He doesn't wanna do it?

Hmm. Okay.

All right.

That's okay. Doesn't matter.

No, if you don't want him to, I certainly won't — not gonna —

Okay.

All right. Bye.

Well, that's that.

I, uh, start with this one...

because it's most probably the thing that I'm most well known for in the world.

And you could see it for a long time on truck mud flaps.

I don't know why it caught the popular imagination.

It caused me nothing but headaches for 10 years after I drew it.

Lawsuits and I.R.S. problems. It was a nightmare.

Just because of this stupid "Keep on Truckin'."

So don't anybody ever come to me and say, "Hey, R. Keep on truckin'."

This is probably the next thing I'm most well known for.

I'm just trying to, you know, hook you into the way I am here.

This sold millions of copies.

I got $600 from CBS Records in 1968.

And they kept my artwork. They stole my artwork.

Those... bastards.

And I heard recently that the original of this sold at Sotheby's for $21,000.

This is the third thing I'm the most well known for...

because this was made into a major full-length animated cartoon...

which was an embarrassment to me for the rest of my life.

And I have to say I had nothing to do with the cartoon.

I didn't want them to do it. I thought they were schlockmeisters.

And they just rolled right over me.

So I had this character killed in a later story I did.

I had a female ostrich stab him in the head with an ice pick.

When I first met him, he never talked.

He just drew the whole time. He was, like, catatonic...

and the only voice he had was his pen.

He was very productive, but he was, like, really —

My mother thought he was retarded when she met him.

She said, you know, "Some people like cripples.

Some people like retards." What could I say?

She thought I was a real creep when she first met me.

But soon as we lived in one place for a long time —

he's known the same people for a long time — he's more comfortable.

He's a little bit more communicative.

But still, you know, he clams up.

He really gets stilted in his conversation around anybody he doesn't know really well.

That's why I'm such an exciting subject for a movie.

Yeah, right.

Watch out with those weights.

Don't hit me with those things.

Don't go behind me.

These rich rednecks have moved out here...

and built their dream homes on top of every single hill.

There used to be nothing over here, and then these people bought this property —

- Shh. They might hear you. - and built this house.

- Shh. Not too loud. - Right above our house.

So that it looks right into Robert's studio.

- Quiet. - I don't care if they hear me.

Couldn't be any ruder than them putting their house right above mine.

- Tone down. - What do I care?

I guess not. Since we're moving to France, what do you care?

Now they have a plan to widen this road...

and put it right through where these trees are.

There was a big "X" here that the surveyors sprayed on here...

and I erased it the other day.

And I took out their sticks from the other side of the road over there.

They're gonna widen this road and take a big chunk of land out of that side with all these trees...

and put 12 dream homes back in there.

Me and Aline decided we would chain ourselves to these oak trees over here...

if they try and take 'em out.

Look. Our house is so humble. It's nestled against a hill.

- It's tasteful. - It's tasteful.

All these other houses are orientated to look down at our place...

because it's like a backdrop for their air-conditioned nightmare houses.

Each hilltop can view each other hilltop.

The schmucks.

I'm drawing some portraits of girls that I had crushes on in high school in Milford, Delaware.

This one I'm drawing now is Winona Newhouse...

affectionately known among the boys as "The Shelf "...

'cause she had this, like, phenomenal rear shelf.

She was nice, too, actually. She was kind to me.

This one here — Naomi Wilson — is this cross-eyed farm girl...

that wore homemade clothes to school.

I secretly had a crush on her. I was very sexually attracted to her.

And of course you never dare admit it openly...

that you liked this funky girl that had B.O. and hairy legs.

And this Jean Strahle — I liked her too. She was also considered a dork.

I remember she was kind of a bookwormy type that talked with a lisp.

Shapely, powerful legs.

I never actually had any contact with these girls...

except I used to play footsie with this one.

Ah, where are they now?

It was 30 years ago. Thirty years ago.

They're all middle-aged housewives now. Jesus, what a thought.

Winona.

I wish she was here now — the 17-year-old Winona —

instead of this film crew.

When I listen to old music, it's one of the few times...

when I actually have a kind of a love for humanity.

You hear the best part of the soul of the common people, you know.

It's their way of expressing their connection to eternity or whatever you want to call it.

Modern music doesn't have that.

It's a calamitous loss that people can't express themselves that way anymore.

So I guess, late 1948, when I was about five years old...

we moved to this section of Philadelphia.

This is this project that we lived in right here.

I can't remember which of these places we lived in. They all look the same.

Jesus. It's grim here.

Oh, my God. This is where we used to go to the market right here.

There was a little dime store that sold toys there.

We used to buy candy and stuff in there. And comic books.

Also, we — just the three brothers, me and Charles and Maxon — hung around together a lot.

We used to rummage around this dump sometimes looking for stuff.

One time, my brother Charles brought this thing back from the dump.

It was this beautiful wooden truck — like an ice cream truck made out of wood.

I wanted that thing really bad, and he wouldn't let me touch it or anything.

He was real spiteful that way.

So I made a big fuss, and I told my mother.

She said, "Charles, let him play with that when you're through."

Then he said, "Okay."

So about 15 minutes later, he came in the house and said...

"Okay, Robert, I'm through with it. You can play with it now."

So I ran outside, and he had smashed it to smithereens against the wall of the house.

So, Charles, you read any good books lately?

I guess I have. I don't know.

You seem to be kind of, like...

recycling a lot of these books you've read.

- What do you mean by recycling? - Like, you're kind of reading —

I mean, you read 'em all 20 years ago. Now you're reading them all again.

I'm reading them again, yeah.

I do that because there's nothing else to do.

You've read 'em all. You ever read anything new?

- I haven't read Kant yet or Hegel. - Do you have any interest in that kind of stuff?

Maybe I'll eventually get around to reading them. I don't know.

You read any recent writers?

- Not really, no. - Not interested in them?

Most of them aren't that good. Most of them aren't that interesting.

They're not nearly as interesting as the old Victorian writers...

of the late 19th century.

I always kind of envied your life in a way, 'cause my life has become so hectic and —

Why? Because I was so detached from the human race?

Is that one of the reasons why you envy me?

This cloistered environment with your books and —

Believe me, it's nothing to envy.

Charles is the one that started this whole comic thing in the family.

He was completely obsessed with comics when we were kids...

and had absolutely no other normal kid interests.

He wasn't interested in toys or games. He didn't play sports.

He didn't do anything but read comics, draw comics...

think comics and talk 'em.

I mean, I liked drawing, but I have other drawing interests besides comics.

I like to draw realistic scenes and, you know...

just pictures of buildings and cars and stuff.

He wasn't interested in that at all. It was only the comics.

This is the earliest one that still exists that I have.

Charles drew this one.

That's supposed to be me, and that's him.

He made me feel absolutely worthless if I wasn't drawing comics.

I don't think I would've done that. I don't think I was as far gone as that.

It was, like, insidious.

Maybe I was just unconsciously imitating the old man.

What was he like when you were growing up?

What, my father? He was an overbearing tyrant.

Yes, he was.

Maybe I was unconsciously imitating him when I forced you to draw comic books.

There's still a kind of sibling rivalry going on between me and Robert...

like there was when we were little kids and he was still living at home.

I think it's — I think, basically, that Robert and I are still competing with each other.

It's, like, when I'm drawing comics, I still think of Charles's approval when I'm drawing...

and whether or not he's gonna like 'em.

Charles had everybody drawing comics in the family.

The Animal Town Publishing Company.

That was a kind of club we had as little kids...

where we sat around and talked about comics.

I was usually the president...

and Robert was usually the vice president.

Carol was usually the secretary.