The Tilley Watch Online, April 14-18, 2025
An end of the week listing of New Yorker artists whose work has appeared on newyorker.com features
Daily Cartoon: Dan Misdea, Ivan Ehlers, Adam Douglas Thompson, Tom Toro, Ali Solomon.
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Personal History: Revisiting Crumb
The publication this week of Dan Nadel’s Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life, caused me to pull a few Crumb titles off the Spill‘s library shelves. I needed a refresher course before diving into the biography. Looking through all of this material set me off down memory lane, back to when I was in my early teens, soaking up more than I can remember.
But of the various work I do remember, Crumb’s was a big time inspiration for about a year or so. My intro to his art came from his cover for the 1968 album, Cheap Thrills: Big Brother and the Holding Company.
But the first extended look at Crumb’s work — and what turned me into a fan — came from the 1970 comic book (or comix?) Despair (shown above, bottom right). His style (more than the content) immediately influenced my drawing. Here’s an example from one of my sketchbooks dating from the early 1970s:
Before Crumb’s heavy influence, I’d been trying to perfect Chic Young’s Dagwood Bumstead among other characters. Never did get Dagwood down, or Batman or Superman. I guess that’s what you do when you’re a kid — you soak up the things you’re attracted to. Looking back at that time now, Crumb was the natural next step after Dagwood (step up, or step sideways — not sure). Very briefly, I drew a comic strip, “My Table” while in high school — a clumsy looking thing, drawn ala Crumb. The characters in the strip were the folks I sat with every day in the school cafeteria. My Crumb period ended abruptly when I discovered James Thurber’s drawings. And justlikethat, I moved far away from attempting to ape the Crumb “look.”
It was interesting to run into Crumb’s work years later when Tina Brown decided to end Rea Irvin’s Eustace Tilley sixty-eight year cover run on the anniversary issue and publish Crumb’s debut in (on) The New Yorker instead (the issue of February 21, 1994).
At the time it seemed an odd fit — a puzzlement! But then again, those years at the magazine were chock full of odd puzzling fits. Nearly a dozen New Yorker Crumb appearances followed, all within the magazine, except one more cover (November 29, 2004). Some of the contributions were duo efforts with Crumb’s wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb (see Dirty Laundry in the above photo). I believe Crumb’s last appearance in the magazine was over twenty years ago. It was one of those duo efforts, “Human Depravity, or Me and George” (January 3, 2005).
Over the years I’ve picked up Crumb material whenever I ran into it. It wasn’t too different than picking up a book about Chic Young’s Blondie, or various comic book heroes I tried to draw as a kid.
For instance: I recently bought this 1966 Batman collection based solely on the cover. Turned out to be good book. Lots of good times with Batman ages ago. A lot of time trying to get that cowl drawn just right, but never quite right enough! Crumb’s work was different for me. I never tried to copy his people — I tried drawing as I did then, but in his style; a real dead end creatively. Best to absorb and move on.
Having reached the end of my trip down Crumb Memory Lane this morning, I’m now prepared to reenter Crumbland via Mr. Nadel’s book.