Underground Comix and Robert Crumb

When the Comics Code Authority came into play during the 1950s, the possibilities for artistic expression through the graphic medium quickly became stilted.  Authors and artists wishing to depict more than what the CCA would allow began to self-publish their work, creating an underground form of the comic book that would eventually be referred to by the moniker of “Comix.”

Comix came into the world during the period of the Vietnam War: a time of social upheaval back home in the US, caused by an increasing dissonance in values and ideals in its populace.  This clashing of values is easily seen in Comix like Whiteman (and a number of R. Crumb’s other works, including the animation, Fritz the Cat), and progressively glimpsed more and more in Howard Cruse’s Barefootz.

My first encounter with R. Crumb was when his illustrated version of the Book of Genesis came out in 2009, and WMagazine rolled out an article featuring his work; I didn’t his work appealing then, and still grasp at straws attempting to find something I genuinely enjoy about it now.  Crumb’s ink work has an intentionally heavy-handed feel that I never really took to, and his particular portrayal of most women – thick thighed, thick legged, “balloon-busted” figures – is, personally, offensive in its invocation of the image of a blow-up doll (meanwhile, males in the spotlight may take on licentious tendencies and engage in often drug-induced buffoonery).

Focusing more on the content of the works read this week (again, primarily on Whiteman, although this analysis is still applicable to parts of Barefootz), Comix seemed to take the freedom they could of being self-published, and ran with it, often heavily relying on shock value (the influence of the free-love Hippie culture and heavy use of psychedelics is also evident).  Sex, drugs, and violence interplay throughout the body of Comix in varying levels (Whiteman focuses more on the sex, Barefootz tends to play more with drugs and sex when dealing with any of the aforementioned), to the degree that they actually begin to lose their shock value and become moot point.

I will fully own up to the fact that I enjoyed some of the Comix discussed, to a small degree.  But I believe part of the disconnect being experienced can be found in the generation gap: these comics were published during a time when there were intense social and political disturbances occurring in the nation – the hippie culture was surfacing alongside the later half of the Civil Rights movement, while young men were being shipped off and [hopefully] returning from the Vietnam War, for better or worse from their experiences overseas.  Comix were contemporary during this time, and, depending on which ones read, addressed or even satired issues that would have been relevant for the time of their publication.  Essentially fifty years later, Generation Y – my generation – has not really experienced the same things they would have back in the 60s and 70s.  With the flattening of the world through the ‘net, the idea of a great, cultural upheaval seems to diminish (as far as I can tell, we don’t even have a distinctive type of music to attribute to Generation Y, unlike previous generations).  There hasn’t really been a great rebellion, be it against parents, society, or the government.  Generations Y and onward seem almost placated by technology and the cultural saturation being experienced, which makes it difficult to relate to such Comix published during a time when discontent ran rife through the hearts of generational contemporaries.