Robert Crumb

Latest Articles

Alternative universe

Boston Expressionism in context
In the 1930s and '40s, Boston painters developed a moody, mythic realism. They mixed social satire with depictions of street scenes, Biblical scenes, and mystical symbolic narratives, all of it darkened by the shadow of the Great Depression and World War II.
By GREG COOK | December 16, 2009

Changing the face of art

Letters to the Boston editor, February 13, 2009
Why are artists getting the shaft?
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | February 11, 2009

Robert Crumb at MassArt

In Crumb's world, everything appears tantalizingly available, all options are on the table, all bets are off.
R. Crumb's Underground at MassArt
By GREG COOK | February 06, 2009

Generation gap

"Black Womanhood" at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum and Cultural Center
It’s an uneven show with a dour vision that leaves a mediciny taste in your mouth — and, I think, offers signs of a generation gap among curators.
By GREG COOK | September 23, 2008

Fever dreams

Fear and loathing in Desemboque
Written in the tradition of the historieta — pulp comics sold in the tens of millions monthly from every Mexican newsstand and bodega — Dead in Desemboque comes across like a dying gringo’s border desert mirage.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 19, 2008

In our nature

Frank Gohlke at the Addison, ‘Pulp Function’ at the Worcester Center for Crafts, and ‘Expanded Sculpture 2’ at 119 Gallery
Gohlke looks at nature not as something that we gaze on from a distance but as the often defiant or disappointing environment where we live.
By RANDI HOPKINS | April 02, 2008

Rockets men

Brown showcases the comix world of Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez
In 1982, two brothers from Oxnard, California, 60 miles northwest of LA, self-published the first issue of a comic they called Love and Rockets .
By GREG COOK | February 07, 2007

Drawing conclusions

Picking the brain of Scott McCloud, the world's reigning comics genius
“We face the audience more in American comics than characters do in Japanese and European comics,” says McCloud. “Here in America characters tend to block you at the door.”
By IAN A. MAISEL | June 22, 2006