Una raccolta tematica di storie dedicate al blues e alle radici della musica americana realizzate da uno dei più noti e autorevoli autori di graphic novel internazionali. Dal delta del Mississippi alle orchestre jazz degli anni Trenta, dal profondo sud degli Stati Uniti con la sua musica nera intrisa di malinconia e di ritmo ai miti che hanno costruito la storia del rock. Uno stile che dalla ricostruzione storica si spinge fino a un'inaspettata ironia passando attraverso episodi di paranoia. C'è la storia triste di Patton, uno degli inventori del blues, un uomo che arrivava direttamente dai campi di cotone e che, sfruttato dall'industria discografica, finì per morire alle soglie del riconoscimento artistico. Oppure quella di un piccolo manager perseguitato da una maledizione vudù. Squarci sulla vita nelle piantagioni e sull'importanza di una chitarra e di una voce con cui raccontare la propria vita ma anche la parodia di vecchie e nuove canzoni, come il successo degli anni Sessanta My Guy o Purple Haze di Jimi Hendrix.

"What do I have in common with the Jews? I don't even have anything incommon with myself." Nothing could better express the essence of FranzKafka, a man described by his friends as living behind a "glass wall."Kafka wrote in the tradition of the great Yiddish storytellers, whosestock-in-trade was bizarre fantasy tainted with hilarity andself-abasement. What he added to this tradition was an almostunbearably expanded consciousness. Alienated from his roots, hisfamily, his surroundings, and primarily from his own body, Kafkacreated a unique literary language in which to hide away, transforminghimself into a cockroach, an ape, a dog, a mole or a circus artiste whostarves himself to death in front of admiring crowds. David ZaneMairowitz's brilliant text and the illustrations and comic panels ofthe world's greatest cartoonist, Robert Crumb (himself no stranger toself-loathing and alienation), help us to understand the essence ofKafka and provide insight beyond the cliche "Kafkaesque," peeringthrough Kafka's glass wall like no other book before it. The book is awonderful educational tool for those unfamiliar with Kafka, including abrief but inclusive biography as well as the plots of many of hisworks, all illustrated by Crumb, making this newly designed edition amust-have for admirers of both Kafka and Crumb.

The story of how a loser-schmuck became a cultural icon. With a free CD of Robert's music.

Nei primi mesi del 1966, Robert Crumb era uno sprovveduto ventenne, con un matrimonio in crisi e una carriera fallita d'artista commerciale alle spalle. Come molti della sua generazione Crumb faceva largo uso di droghe psichedeliche. Fu proprio durante un trip che l'autore riversò nei suoi blocchi di schizzi tutta una serie di bizzarri personaggi, ancora senza un nome, che avrebbero riempito le pagine dei suoi comics per una decina di anni: dallo Snoid a Schuman l'Umano, da Eggs Hackley alle Demoni Avvoltoio, fino a Mr. Natural e Flakey Foont. Dei personaggi che nacquero da quest'esperienza, Mr. Natural è sicuramente il più noto.

Fantagraphics is proud to present these sketchbooks, in facsimile form, as a comprehensive series of volumes that will eventually run well over 4,000 pages. Volume 9, covering 1972 through 1975, is the latest and it represents one of the more inquisitive and soul-searching periods in this phenomenal artist's life. These sketchbooks represent, in essence, something never before achieved in the field of art and literature: a single, unified, organic (and ongoing) life's work. Even more so than the painter Frida Kahlo's drawn diaries, Crumb's sketchbooks are, as a body of work, incomparable in their magnitude, scope, and intensity, and therein lies their uniqueness and value.

Unrecognizable as straight autobiography, these books chronicle Crumb's perceptions more than his life itself. As such, they offer a rare and often raw insight into process: how ideas are formed, how connections are made, how technique and craft are honed, and how the ability to "see" is truly cultivated. The cumulative effect of these sketchbooks is to narrow the gap between the artist and his art; or, to put it another way, to create such an intimacy as to render the profound connection between art and humanity palpable. These sketchbooks also stand as a monumental existential document.

Crumb repeatedly expresses, through a variety of penetrating and coruscating visual metaphors, the central existentialist struggle: to live in the full light of consciousness with all the risk, pain and suffering that entails. Nowhere is this more apparent than in this ninth volume, which coincides with Crumb's rise to fame and rejection of the late '60s hippie counterculture that made him famous. Like every volume in the series, though, Volume 9 offers the full panoply of a life of perceptions rendered with consummate artistry.

The definitive, comprehensive series reprinting Crumb's published career enters the mid-1980s with this 15th volume, a period that many critics consider to be the richest of Crumb's career. Anchored by Crumb's contributions to the seminal anthology Weirdo, created and edited by Crumb, this volume includes the first several appearances of classic Crumb character Mode O' Day, the networking fashion plate that serves as a foil for some of Crumb's most biting satire about America's cultural "elite." Other Weirdo highlights include Crumb's fascinating adaptation of Dr. R. Von Krafft-Ebing's "Psychopathia Sexualis," and "Where Has it Gone, all the Beautiful Music of Our Grandparents?", two stories often-cited as being amongst Crumb's very best work. The Weirdo section wraps up with yet another classic, "The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick," which chronicles the last years of the highly-regarded science-fiction writer who experienced an intense vision of the apocalypse and believed that he was possessed by the spirit of Elijah.

Also included are Crumb's first collaborations with the late writer Charles Bukowski, including the chapbook "Bring Me Your Love," as well as several collaborations with Harvey Pekar from his autobiographical series American Splendor. The book is rounded out with a color section that includes rare album art for various jazz and blues greats, as well reproductions of his various comic book covers from this period. Crumb is the most revealing of all artists, and The Complete Crumb Comics leaves no stone unturned. Featuring a lengthy introduction by Peter Bagge.

Phoebe Gloeckner's first book collects her highly praised autobiographical accounts of a teenage girl's loss of innocence through sex, drugs, rape, and AIDS. This edition includes eight pages of new material.

Long respected as one of the finest and most original of today's underground comics artists, Gloeckner shows both technical artistry and tremendous range—from her sly, lurid, and brilliantly colored posters for rock groups to her textbook-quality medical illustrations; from her sharp naturalistic juxtapositions for The Atrocity Exhibition (J.G. Ballard) to the signature comics for which she is best known.

Pages include both black and white and color comics, some that were published before in obscure comic books, and some of her classics in addition to new stories. In detailed, nuanced panels, these strips depict the isolation, horror, and disappointment—but also the revolutionary, transformative power—of young women trapped in circumstances ringed with drugs and sexual abuse. Gloeckner continues as a major literary and visual artist.

This volume features the beginning of a seminal period of both Crumb's life and comics history with the first eight issues of Weirdo magazine, edited and anchored by Crumb, including the legendary strips, “Uncle Bob's Mid-Life Crisis” and “I Remember the Sixties.” Also included are collaborations with Harvey Pekar from the pages of American Splendor, rare music-related art, Crumb's final contributions to Winds of Change magazine, and much more. Including the entirety of Crumb's published oeuvre, as well as unpublished comics and illustrations, The Complete Crumb Comics series (along with its companion series, The R. Crumb Sketchbooks) is an invaluable addition to any comics library.

The whole idea for Weirdo magazine came to me in a flash in the fall of 1980. I was performing my daily meditation exercise one day when the vision of this kooky, screwball magazine erupted in all its tacky, low-life, dumbass essence, a style-mix of the old 1940s and '50s girlie-and-cartoon "joke books," Harvey Kurtzman's early Mad and Humbug and their sleazy imitators, and the self-published "punk" zines of the period. I got very excited. I became obsessed. – From the introduction by R. Crumb

These early volumes of our multiple Harvey and Eisner Award-winning Complete Crumb Comics series have been amongst our most demanded reprints the last few years. Following last season’s reprint of the expanded Vol. 1, the first three volumes of this best-selling series will all be in print for the first time in a decade! “Starring Fritz the Cat” includes the stories that began to build the Crumb legend: the original Fritz stories from Harvey Kurtzman’s Help! magazine in 1965, plus much rare art, some of Crumb’s long-lost American Greeting cards from the ’60s, and more. Plus, the story of Crumb’s first acid trip!

Back in print after a several year absence and with R. Crumb's popularityhigher than ever in the wake of the bestselling R. Crumb's Genesis, thisvolume of The Complete Crumb Comics showcase several key years in Crumb'scareer.

Vol. 13 showcases the late 1970s, when Crumb's character the Snoidfirst appeared. That Crumb creation is a devilish imp, all id and no conscience,that some say is an alter ego of Crumb. Other highlights here include earlycollaborations with the late Harvey Pekar and a color section of covers Crumbdrew for records by old-time blues and jazz musicians that beautifully conveyhis nostalgia for America's musical past. It also includes one of Crumb's mostacclaimed works, “A Short History of America,” whose 12 panels chart thenation's progress — or deterioration — from unspoiled pastoral landscape to astrip mall wasteland. Crumb's brother Maxon, whom viewers of the documentaryfilm Crumb will remember as an impecunious yogi who sleeps on a bed ofnails, contributes an idiosyncratic introduction offering a unique perspectiveon Robert's early years.

The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 4: Mr. Sixties! continues the multi-volume series comprising the complete works of the legendary cartoonist R. Crumb, one of America's most original, trenchant, and uncompromising satirists. The series includes the earliest, heretofore unpublished comic strips, as well as his sketchbooks, underground comix, dramatic and autobiographical strips, and his classic cartoon creations Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural. In this volume: Zap #0 & #1 ("Keep On Truckin'!"), Crumb's work from the East Village Other and Yarrowstalks, plus much rare art, some of Crumb's long-lost American Greetings cards from the '60s, and more.

"I figured it out somehow — the way to put the stoned experience into a series of cartoon panels. I began to submit LSD-inspired strips to underground papers... not for pay... never gave it a thought... but they loved them. These 1967 strips of mine contained the hopeful spirit of the times, drawn in a more lovable 'bigfoot' style. The stuff caught on. They wanted more. Suddenly I was able to churn it out... late that summer one of the underground paper publishers asked me to do an entire issue of his paper Yarrowstalks (corny hippy spiritual stuff — 'yarrowstalks' are what they used to throw the 'I Ching'). This went over so well that he suggested I draw comic books and he would publish them. This was a thrilling idea to me — a dream come true..."—R. Crumb, from his introduction to this volume

"I'm anxious to see the Sketchbooks come out," sez R. Crumb. And all comics fans should be, too, for the R. Crumb Sketchbook series reprints Crumb's personal sketchbooks, the immediate products of Mr. Obsessive Sketcher's genius. Personally selected by the artist, the drawings in these volumes include much material never seen before, not even in the German "2001" editions of the sketchbooks (which are long out of print anyhow). Volume 5 covers 1967 and 1968 — the time when Crumb was crowned King of the Undergrounds — and includes drawings of "flower children" and strips with the famous characters such as Mr. Natural, Shuman the Human, and Eggs Ackley. (And not-so-famous characters such as Bob Dill, the Folk-Singing Pickle.) Unexpected gems and early versions of famous pieces leap out at you as you glance through the book. A case in point this time: remember the famous EVO "Mr. Natural as a vacuum-cleaner salesman" cover, which showed the sage/huckster alarming Mrs. Suburban Housewife? (Fantagraphics used the image on a t-shirt.) This characteristically Crumb-esque piece, symbol of mainstream America's confusion face-to-face with the explosion of the late '60s, appears in an early version here in Volume 5. Just rousted from the artist's imagination, Mrs. Housewife still sports curlers and a housedress, and looks like she hasn't had her first cup of coffee yet. See a world-famous artist at work, developing ideas. Cameo by Mickey Mouse.

"Che cos'ho in comune con gli ebrei? Non ho neppure niente in comune con me stesso". Questa battuta meglio di qualsiasi altra, esprime l'essenza di Franz Kafka. Un uomo che veniva descritto dai suoi amici come uno che sembrava vivesse dietro una parete di vetro. Kafka scrisse nella tradizione dei grandi narratori jiddish, attingendo a un patrimonio culturale caratterizzato da una fantasia bizzarra venata di sfumature di umorismo e automortificazione. Ciò che aggiunse a questa tradizione fu una consapevolezza ossessiva. Crumb e Mairowitz ci danno un'interpretazione di Kafka e del suo ambiente che ha interessato molti studiosi.

An accomplished musician on banjo, guitar and ukelele and an avid collector of early jazz and blues records, Robert Crumb constantly writes and draws about music of all kinds. Brought together for the first time from all stages of his career these strips range from the silly to the serious. Real people and real problems are the substance of stories like Jelly Roll Morton's Voodoo Curse and Patton while Crumb's celebrated light-hearted zaniness can be seen in Cubist Be-Bop Comics, The Old Songs are The Best Songs and Sunny side up. Crumb is as obssessed with music as he is with sex, and his extraordinary talent shines throughout this collection.

Continuing our ongoing commitment to keep this perennial, canonic series in print, we represent two of most often-demanded volumes in The Complete Crumb Comics. Vol. 8: “Starring Fritz the Cat” features one of Crumb’s most notorious comics, “The Death of Fritz the Cat,” as well as “Whiteman Meets Bigfoot,” the complete Big Ass #2 and Mr. Natural #2, wild jams and loads of photos! This volume covers the years 1971-1972.

Back in print after a several-year absence, and with Crumb's popularity ever-rising, the seventh volume of The Complete Crumb Comics spotlights Crumb's work from 1970 and 1971, the peak years of Crumb's hippie stardom which led to “the grip of paralyzing, crippling self-consciousness that for years became increasingly harder to push past,” as Crumb writes in his introduction. Included from this era is the entirety of Crumb's work from underground classics such as ZAP, The East Village Other, Bijou, Mr. Natural, Uneeda, Esquire, and much more, including strips featuring classic Crumb characters like Fritz the Cat, Flakey Foont, Angelfood McSpade, Bo Bo Bolinski, and Shuman the Human.

Continuing our ongoing commitment to keep this perennial, canonic series in print, we represent two of most often-demanded volumes in The Complete Crumb Comics. Vol. 5: “Happy Hippy Comix” spotlights the period from late-1967 through 1969, including the second issue of ZAP Comix, the introduction of Angelfood McSpade, Mr. Natural, a long Fritz story, an alternate version of the Cheap Thrills album cover, and more!

These early volumes of our multiple Harvey and Eisner Award-winning Complete Crumb Comics series have been amongst our most demanded reprints the last few years. Following last season’s reprint of the expanded Vol. 1, the first three volumes of this best-selling series will all be in print for the first time in a decade! “Some More Early Years of Bitter Struggle” features several key stories from Crumb’s pre-underground, homemade comics of the early 1960s (such as Farb and Arcade), with stories featuring early Crumb characters Fritz the Cat, Jim, Mabel, and Little Billy Bean.