R. Crumb

THE WILD AND WACKY WORLD GOES ON

"He was just an alcoholic 'third density' pervert suffering from ill health; still, he had some interesting ideas." So reads the caption to one of R. Crumb's recent placemat drawings (on view through December 9 at Paul Morris Gallery in New York City)--one that might equally serve as a description of the eccentric legend himself. Made while hanging out in bars and restaurants, the drawings are often scathing and hilarious depictions of those rituals of food and courtship conducted in and around his favorite haunts. Loose and improvisational, they suggest Daumier as much as Bruegel. Crumb walks a thin, spidery line between traditional caricature and acid-surreality, peeling back decorum to reveal a roiling subterranea of libidinal psychoses. What his fellow diners are up to in their various states of sexual and digestive agitation is just about anybody's guess, but Pepto Bismol alone clearly does not hold the answer.

Best known as the creator of Underground Comix legends such as Mr. Natural and Fritz the Cat, Crumb is one of those rare social satirists who refuses to seek insulation from the comic grotesquerie that surrounds him. For Crumb, drawing, as much as the rampant sexual imaginings that follow it, has become an act of obsessive compulsion, each feeding off the other. These new works were all made while waiting for service of one sort or another. And while they might appear to be a minor art form, Crumb's inter-course imaginings keep us wondering in ways that go beyond the question of just dessert.

Neville wakefield is a writer living in New York. R. crumb's The Weirdo Makeover (1983). Hand-colored silkscreen, 29 3/4" x 34 1/4". Courtesy Paul Morris Gallery, NYC, and Modernism Gallery, San Francisco.

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