{"id":156679,"date":"2025-11-24T07:43:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T07:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/156679\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T07:43:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T07:43:12","slug":"r-crumb-wonders-what-it-all-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/156679\/","title":{"rendered":"R. Crumb Wonders What It All Means"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 R. Crumb has a new comic book! After a 23-year hiatus, Tales of Paranoia<\/a> comes out this month, published by Fantagraphics, and the underground comic guru is exhibiting original drawings from the book at David Zwirner gallery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The exhibition comprises original illustrated panels included in the comic book along with a few other recent drawings and excerpts from his sketchbooks. Now a widowed octogenarian based in France, his latest work demonstrates the same masterful rendering of his subjects, sans his prurient material. However, his witty humor, self-deprecation, paranoia, narcissism, anti-establishment commentary, and self-proclaimed neurosis \u2014 almost to a point of pride \u2014 have reached a new level of darkness. Clearly, he misses his wife and collaborator, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, who passed away in 2022. Her absence seems to have heightened his self-awareness and self-reflection. Left to his own devices, he explores his afflictions \u2014 and now mortality. \u201cWhat does it all mean at this point in life?\u201d he seems to muse.<\/p>\n

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\t\tPage from R. Crumb, \u201cWhat is Paranoia?\u201d (2025) (\u00a9 Robert Crumb, 2025, courtesy the artist, Paul Morris, and David Zwirner)<\/p>\n

A panel made in collaboration with Aline and their daughter, Sophie, \u201cCrumb Family Covid Expos\u00e9\u201d (2021), shows how the pandemic threw him into a tailspin, as he tunneled down a rabbit hole of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. He is an anti-vaxxer who deeply mistrusts the government and freaks out behind his wife\u2019s back as she makes sure to get her vaccines. The two of them draw themselves in each panel from their own perspectives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In \u201cThe Very Worst LSD I Ever Had\u201d (2023) \u2014 one of the most disturbing stories \u2014 Crumb revisits a bad acid trip that has haunted him since it happened in 1966. What bothered him most about the experience was how it was blocked from his memory. Crumb was no stranger to psychedelics, but this trip left him paranoid. He and his first wife, Dana, had visited a house they heard was giving out the drug; after taking it, he became convinced that they were part of a science project. When Crumb explained his feelings to Peter Cornell, who doled out the drug, Cornell responded, \u201cAnd now you\u2019re going to die.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

With a long history in the comic world, Crumb caught national attention in the 1960s through his unique art. His crosshatching, done with his favorite tool, the Rapidograph pen, soon established his signature style, while album and book covers brought his work into mainstream pop culture, particularly the iconic 1968 Janis Joplin album Cheap Thrills<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Installation view of R. Crumb: Tales of Paranoia at David Zwirner, Los Angeles (photo Angel Xotlanihua, courtesy David Zwirner)<\/p>\n

Crumb\u2019s work has long been embraced by the fine art world. This latest series of comics are now neatly matted and framed in Zwirner\u2019s second gallery. To break up the monotony of the presentation, the back wall is painted a bright mustard yellow, with the title of the show, and a seating area is set up with a few of his books to peruse. (Too bad one can\u2019t rip a drawing off the wall to sit with and read; standing for hours reading the comics can become challenging, if not straight-up tiring.)<\/p>\n

Many of Crumb\u2019s personality traits don\u2019t exactly match up: He\u2019s liberal-minded but against vaccines; self-doubting but confident; a monogamist with a wandering eye. He is a mixed-up guy and is not afraid to put it all on display \u2014 perhaps for his own catharsis. In this new series he mainly concentrates on his paranoia with the vaccine and the political overseers, not trusting anyone. Two panels of \u201cConspiracy Theories!\u201d (2025) are just text, spelling out the dire situation of today\u2019s political climate. It\u2019s difficult to get through the dense text, but a few gems stand out: \u201cLarge numbers of people now harbor suspicions that there was something phony or rigged about the whole pandemic narrative,\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s really going on?,\u201d \u201cWhere does one turn for reliable sources of information,\u201d and in big black block lettering, \u201cQUESTION AUTHORITY.\u201d One could easily walk away from this exhibition with a sense of doom.<\/p>\n

What is unusual about this new work, especially for me, is that I find myself sympathizing with him. The authenticity of his emotions \u2014 his feelings of helplessness and paranoia \u2014 can get to you. A cover line on his comic book, Tales of Paranoianstallation , says in a big yellow starburst, \u201cBatshit Crazy or True Persception \u2014 Who Can Tell?\u201d That pretty much sums it up. Welcome to Crumb\u2019s world of 2025 \u2014 it\u2019s not a pretty picture.<\/p>\n

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\t\tPage from R. Crumb, \u201cI\u2019m Afraid\u201d (2025)\u00a0(\u00a9 Robert Crumb, 2025, courtesy the artist, Paul Morris, and David Zwirner)<\/p>\n

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\t\tInstallation view of R. Crumb: Tales of Paranoia at David Zwirner, Los Angeles (photo Angel Xotlanihua, courtesy David Zwirner)<\/p>\n

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\t\tR. Crumb, \u201cCover: Tales of Paranoia\u201d (2025) (\u00a9 Robert Crumb, 2025, courtesy the artist, Paul Morris, and David Zwirner)<\/p>\n

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\t\tR. Crumb, one of two drawings comprising \u201cConspiracy Theories!\u201d (2025) (photo Tulsa Kinney\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

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\t\tR. Crumb, \u201cI\u2019ll Just Stand and Wring My Hands and Cry\u201d (2025) (\u00a9 Robert Crumb, 2025, courtesy the artist, Paul Morris, and David Zwirner)<\/p>\n

R. Crumb: Tales of Paranoia<\/a> continues at David Zwirner gallery (616 North Western Avenue, Melrose Hill, Los Angeles) through January 10. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 R. Crumb has a new comic book! After a 23-year hiatus, Tales of Paranoia comes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,1024,88302,308,93,61,60,116,29178],"class_list":{"0":"post-156679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-comics","13":"tag-david-zwirner-gallery","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-robert-crumb"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}