Sophie Crumb, new American Cartoonist
February 15, 2004
Introducing a Cartoonist Named Crumb
By TESSA DeCARLO
ERKELEY, Calif.
EVERY month Rory Root adds 500 to 600 new titles to the already crowded shelves of Comic Relief, his densely packed store here specializing in illustrated novels, comic books and other expressions of the cartooning impulse. And every month, between 50 and 100 of those titles are by newcomers making their first appearance in print.
"What's unique about this business is that the barrier to entry is very low," Mr. Root says. "But not all of the new faces make a hit, and not all of them should."
One new face who seems destined to go the distance, however, is the author of "Belly Button Comix," a 32-page booklet published last month by Fantagraphics Books in Seattle. Identified only as Sophie on the cover, she is in fact Sophie Crumb, the 22-year-old daughter of the legendary counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb and his cartoonist-turned-artist wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb.
Sophie Crumb grew up in Winters, a small farm town in California's Central Valley where her parents settled to escape the fleshpots of San Francisco and Mr. Crumb's legion of fans. In 1990, disillusioned with American culture and worried about its effects on their 9-year-old daughter, the Crumbs relocated to Sauve, an even smaller, more rural town in the south of France.
Throughout her childhood, Sophie read comics — including her parents' work — and drew comics herself. While still a preteenager she even collaborated with them on several strips about the family that were collected in "The Complete Dirty Laundry Comics" (Last Gasp, 1993).
After graduating from the French equivalent of high school, Ms. Crumb took some art courses, then studied acrobatics and clowning at a circus school in Paris and taught herself the basics of tattooing. She earned her living by teaching English.
Recently Ms. Crumb, an elfin young woman with cropped light brown hair and the faintest French accent, returned to Northern California on a sort of reverse grand tour.
When first encountered at a Berkeley cafe, she sat hunched over a sketchbook intently inking a portrait of two chess players seated nearby. "If I don't draw for more than a day or two I feel depressed and useless," she explained.
Ms. Crumb at work is reminiscent of several scenes in "Crumb," Terry Zwigoff's 1994 documentary about her father. The resemblance is only heightened by her surroundings, the remnants of the hippie subculture from which Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat and the rest of her father's most famous characters sprang. She's currently living in a communal household — "It's so stuck in the 70's it's really painful," she said — and she and her housemates often raid local dumpsters for food. Her sketchbook, whose pages are imprinted with kitschy cat motifs, was also found in the garbage. "I'm trying to not spend money so I don't have to get a job," she said.
Although she has loved drawing almost from birth, Ms. Crumb's narrative ambitions have not always focused on comics. "For a while what I wanted to do was children's books," she said. She wrote a story about a weasel named Jo and illustrated it with watercolors. "But the story's bad," she says. The book was never published.
Two years ago she returned to her roots. Her comics have since been featured in a few small European publications, and in Mr. Zwigoff's 2001 movie, "Ghost World." In addition, one of her drawings was included in a group show at the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York last summer.
"Belly Button" is her first American appearance in print. True to its title, "Belly Button" offers mordantly navel-gazing accounts of Ms. Crumb's own dreams, anxieties and encounters with the opposite sex. There are also stories about an alienated ursine adolescent named Eddy Bear ("He doesn't care!") and ZaZa, a genetic mix of Betty Boop and a 1930's animated ant. Both the traditional-yet-funky drawing style and the confessional, often sexually explicit content are unavoidably reminiscent of the work of Ms. Crumb's parents.
"I'd be very embarrassed if they read it in front of me," she said. "But that's what's funny about it, also."
She decided to leave her last name off her first comic — despite her publisher's pleas — hoping that at least some people would read it without knowing who her father was. "If you compare me to him, I'll stop drawing right away," she said. "He's the best, so how can I be like that?"
Mr. Root agrees. "The biggest challenge she faces is making her own identity as an artist," he said. "But if you grow up in a home with one of the greatest artists in the 20th and 21st centuries, you'd be a fool not to be influenced. And Sophie's no fool."
Ms. Crumb has started work on a second "Belly Button Comix" but says that her relationship with a young man she met in Berkeley is cutting into her productivity. "Right now I'm totally into the boyfriend thing," she said. "Boyfriends and drawings — they don't go together."
Although Ms. Crumb's parents have always encouraged her artistic pursuits, they've also warned that it's difficult to make a living with cartoons. So she plans to travel to New York later this year to become an apprentice tattooist. "I'm happy to be learning a trade that I can make money off of," she said. "I still have to make comics, though. It's my fate."
Tessa DeCarlo writes about art and culture from Northern California.
Introducing a Cartoonist Named Crumb
By TESSA DeCARLO
ERKELEY, Calif.
EVERY month Rory Root adds 500 to 600 new titles to the already crowded shelves of Comic Relief, his densely packed store here specializing in illustrated novels, comic books and other expressions of the cartooning impulse. And every month, between 50 and 100 of those titles are by newcomers making their first appearance in print.
"What's unique about this business is that the barrier to entry is very low," Mr. Root says. "But not all of the new faces make a hit, and not all of them should."
One new face who seems destined to go the distance, however, is the author of "Belly Button Comix," a 32-page booklet published last month by Fantagraphics Books in Seattle. Identified only as Sophie on the cover, she is in fact Sophie Crumb, the 22-year-old daughter of the legendary counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb and his cartoonist-turned-artist wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb.
Sophie Crumb grew up in Winters, a small farm town in California's Central Valley where her parents settled to escape the fleshpots of San Francisco and Mr. Crumb's legion of fans. In 1990, disillusioned with American culture and worried about its effects on their 9-year-old daughter, the Crumbs relocated to Sauve, an even smaller, more rural town in the south of France.
Throughout her childhood, Sophie read comics — including her parents' work — and drew comics herself. While still a preteenager she even collaborated with them on several strips about the family that were collected in "The Complete Dirty Laundry Comics" (Last Gasp, 1993).
After graduating from the French equivalent of high school, Ms. Crumb took some art courses, then studied acrobatics and clowning at a circus school in Paris and taught herself the basics of tattooing. She earned her living by teaching English.
Recently Ms. Crumb, an elfin young woman with cropped light brown hair and the faintest French accent, returned to Northern California on a sort of reverse grand tour.
When first encountered at a Berkeley cafe, she sat hunched over a sketchbook intently inking a portrait of two chess players seated nearby. "If I don't draw for more than a day or two I feel depressed and useless," she explained.
Ms. Crumb at work is reminiscent of several scenes in "Crumb," Terry Zwigoff's 1994 documentary about her father. The resemblance is only heightened by her surroundings, the remnants of the hippie subculture from which Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat and the rest of her father's most famous characters sprang. She's currently living in a communal household — "It's so stuck in the 70's it's really painful," she said — and she and her housemates often raid local dumpsters for food. Her sketchbook, whose pages are imprinted with kitschy cat motifs, was also found in the garbage. "I'm trying to not spend money so I don't have to get a job," she said.
Although she has loved drawing almost from birth, Ms. Crumb's narrative ambitions have not always focused on comics. "For a while what I wanted to do was children's books," she said. She wrote a story about a weasel named Jo and illustrated it with watercolors. "But the story's bad," she says. The book was never published.
Two years ago she returned to her roots. Her comics have since been featured in a few small European publications, and in Mr. Zwigoff's 2001 movie, "Ghost World." In addition, one of her drawings was included in a group show at the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York last summer.
"Belly Button" is her first American appearance in print. True to its title, "Belly Button" offers mordantly navel-gazing accounts of Ms. Crumb's own dreams, anxieties and encounters with the opposite sex. There are also stories about an alienated ursine adolescent named Eddy Bear ("He doesn't care!") and ZaZa, a genetic mix of Betty Boop and a 1930's animated ant. Both the traditional-yet-funky drawing style and the confessional, often sexually explicit content are unavoidably reminiscent of the work of Ms. Crumb's parents.
"I'd be very embarrassed if they read it in front of me," she said. "But that's what's funny about it, also."
She decided to leave her last name off her first comic — despite her publisher's pleas — hoping that at least some people would read it without knowing who her father was. "If you compare me to him, I'll stop drawing right away," she said. "He's the best, so how can I be like that?"
Mr. Root agrees. "The biggest challenge she faces is making her own identity as an artist," he said. "But if you grow up in a home with one of the greatest artists in the 20th and 21st centuries, you'd be a fool not to be influenced. And Sophie's no fool."
Ms. Crumb has started work on a second "Belly Button Comix" but says that her relationship with a young man she met in Berkeley is cutting into her productivity. "Right now I'm totally into the boyfriend thing," she said. "Boyfriends and drawings — they don't go together."
Although Ms. Crumb's parents have always encouraged her artistic pursuits, they've also warned that it's difficult to make a living with cartoons. So she plans to travel to New York later this year to become an apprentice tattooist. "I'm happy to be learning a trade that I can make money off of," she said. "I still have to make comics, though. It's my fate."
Tessa DeCarlo writes about art and culture from Northern California.
The New York Times has a feature
about Sophie Crumb, daughter of the legendary cartoonist Robert Crumb. It
appears that Sophie has moved from her parent's home in France, to Berkley, and
has just published her first comic book. Sophie is weighing her options. Comix
artist? or tattoo artist?
Some excerpts of the article by the New York Times' Tessa DeCarlo
"Belly Button" is her first American appearance in print. True to its title, "Belly Button" offers mordantly navel-gazing accounts of Ms. Crumb's own dreams, anxieties and encounters with the opposite sex. There are also stories about an alienated ursine adolescent named Eddy Bear ("He doesn't care!") and ZaZa, a genetic mix of Betty Boop and a 1930's animated ant. Both the traditional-yet-funky drawing style and the confessional, often sexually explicit content are unavoidably reminiscent of the work of Ms. Crumb's parents.
"I'd be very embarrassed if they read it in front of me," she said. "But that's what's funny about it, also."
She decided to leave her last name off her first comic — despite her publisher's pleas — hoping that at least some people would read it without knowing who her father was. "If you compare me to him, I'll stop drawing right away," she said. "He's the best, so how can I be like that?"
Mr. Root agrees. "The biggest challenge she faces is making her own identity as an artist," he said. "But if you grow up in a home with one of the greatest artists in the 20th and 21st centuries, you'd be a fool not to be influenced. And Sophie's no fool."
Ms. Crumb has started work on a second "Belly Button Comix" but says that her relationship with a young man she met in Berkeley is cutting into her productivity. "Right now I'm totally into the boyfriend thing," she said. "Boyfriends and drawings — they don't go together."
Although Ms. Crumb's parents have always encouraged her artistic pursuits, they've also warned that it's difficult to make a living with cartoons. So she plans to travel to New York later this year to become an apprentice tattooist. "I'm happy to be learning a trade that I can make money off of," she said. "I still have to make comics, though. It's my fate."
If you're not registered at the New York Times to access the article, go to "Read More", below, to read the full text
Some excerpts of the article by the New York Times' Tessa DeCarlo
"Belly Button" is her first American appearance in print. True to its title, "Belly Button" offers mordantly navel-gazing accounts of Ms. Crumb's own dreams, anxieties and encounters with the opposite sex. There are also stories about an alienated ursine adolescent named Eddy Bear ("He doesn't care!") and ZaZa, a genetic mix of Betty Boop and a 1930's animated ant. Both the traditional-yet-funky drawing style and the confessional, often sexually explicit content are unavoidably reminiscent of the work of Ms. Crumb's parents.
"I'd be very embarrassed if they read it in front of me," she said. "But that's what's funny about it, also."
She decided to leave her last name off her first comic — despite her publisher's pleas — hoping that at least some people would read it without knowing who her father was. "If you compare me to him, I'll stop drawing right away," she said. "He's the best, so how can I be like that?"
Mr. Root agrees. "The biggest challenge she faces is making her own identity as an artist," he said. "But if you grow up in a home with one of the greatest artists in the 20th and 21st centuries, you'd be a fool not to be influenced. And Sophie's no fool."
Ms. Crumb has started work on a second "Belly Button Comix" but says that her relationship with a young man she met in Berkeley is cutting into her productivity. "Right now I'm totally into the boyfriend thing," she said. "Boyfriends and drawings — they don't go together."
Although Ms. Crumb's parents have always encouraged her artistic pursuits, they've also warned that it's difficult to make a living with cartoons. So she plans to travel to New York later this year to become an apprentice tattooist. "I'm happy to be learning a trade that I can make money off of," she said. "I still have to make comics, though. It's my fate."
If you're not registered at the New York Times to access the article, go to "Read More", below, to read the full text
Posted: Sun - February 15, 2004 at 07:44 AM
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