This week I read Mr. Natural By Robert Cumb. I thought this was a very entertaining comic although it was perverted, racist, sexist and just all around wrong. I found myself shocked by the content and images in this comic but I thought it was funny so I continued reading it. The first strip I read was sunny side up with Mr. Natural this strip gave me a completely different view of Mr. Natural than what I got when I read on. Sunny side up was a fairly friendly strip that rhymed about being sunny and happy and that was basically it. When I continued reading I saw Mr. Natural meditating and that gave me a kick because it seemed like he was there for so long! Once I got to Mr. Natural and Shuman the Human I started to notice very obvious signs of racism. Right away when the little black girl showed up in the strip she spoke very poor english and she said "Gimme dat money" also the way he drew her and her family they looked like monkeys! As I continued reading Robert Crumbs comics they became very sexual and perverted. I have to say I found it hilarious but I can see certain people getting offended by these comics. The images themselves are quite vulgar.
As far as the illustrations go they definitely work well will the comic and the style, he drew grotesque people doing very strange things. His characters are interesting looking and well developed and he keeps the backgrounds very simple. Every once in a while Crumb played with the shapes of the frames, making them wobbly, or more vertical or horizontal but for the most part they were pretty consistent and the view was pretty straight on.
I also read through his heroes of the Blues because I am a big fan of blues music and I was interested in the way Crumb would depict some of the old legends. looking through this set of images made me admire Robert Crumb even more. His drawings have their own personality to them, they are rendered and clean yet graphic and loose. You can tell he is very shape oriented which is something I am also very interested in. His drawing are unique, any Robert Crumb fan would be able to spot his illustrations out of a crowd and that is something that every artist thrives for.
Although the content in Robert Crumbs comics may not have been suitable for everyone I thoroughly enjoy his satirical humor, draftsmanship, color and sense of design. To me Robert Crumb is someone who you really have to except for who they are (although you should be this way towards everyone) he is an interesting character and I do not think people should judge him by his images and criticize him the way that they do. Everyone has their own way of expressing themselves and if someone is creating something that isn't appealing to you than look the other way. Yes he may draw overly sexual women but I don't believe that that necessarily means he sees all women like this or is even racist for that matter. Instead I think we should admire him and his will to be himself despite what the world around him is saying. I do, I find him to be such a unique individual, from the way he dresses and the way he talks to the way he views people. He's living his life for himself and not for anyone else.
Robert Crumbs comics were very interesting and he really gave me a desire to read more underground comics because I didn't know that comics with this type of content existed.
