Sex in the Comix: Not Approved by the Comics Code Authority

Yes, R. Crumb is still alive. In fact, he seems to be doing better than ever. Of course, he should be in a good head space when discussing his favorite topics: sexually explicit comics and his own life. The two subjects are often deeply intertwined for the artists profiled in Joëlle Oosterlinck’s Sex in the Comix (trailer here), which releases today on VOD.

They are not kidding about the “x” in Comix. Explicit Comix make X-rated films look restrained and prudish. You can find just about every transgressive hang-up given free rein and you can thank the 1960s counter-culture. As Crumb explains, the underground press would publish anything he submitted, no matter how shocking, but they paid a pittance.

So there you pretty much have it. Oosterlinck basically gives viewers a breezy survey of some of the leading lights of redlight district comic book history, essentially introducing their major themes and motifs and then moving on to the next participant. It offers a reasonably broad cross-section, including the classical eroticism of Milo Manara and the macabrely baroque work of Suehiro Maruo (a favorite of John Zorn). However, there seems to be a slight bias in favor of homoerotic and feminist artists and storylines.

Rather tellingly, only the late Tom of Finland and Alison Bechdel’s work are still discussed even though they do not appear as an interview subjects. Yet, it is ironically debatable whether the film passes the Bechdel Test (probably, if we count French autobiographical comic artist Aude Picault discussing her work, presumably with Oosterlinck).

It is hard to really get bored by any combination of sex and comic books, but the fifty-two minutes of SITC never has sufficient time for any truly revelatory analysis. Burlesque performer and comic artist Molly Crabapple’s coquettish persona is not particularly well suited for hosting duties either. Still, it is nice to see Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb looking well, especially considering how much convincing it took for him to consent to Zwigoff’s film.

Having previously co-directed Art of Spiegelman, a documentary profile of Maus creator Art Spiegelman, Oosterlinck clearly has a passion for comic book art as a mature adult form of creative expression. However, the earlier documentary worked better because of its greater focus. Basically a time killer that might have greater meaning for passionate fans of Crumb or Crabapple, Sex in the Comix is now available via VOD platforms, from Doppelganger Releasing.

R. Crumb’s Heroes

R. Crumb’s Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country
Introduction by Terry Zwigoff
Harry N. Abrams
0-8109-3086-2

The man behind Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural, is also a notorious record collector. Having assembled a famous collection of 78’s, R. Crumb is a recognized authority on early blues, jazz, and country artists, the more obscure the better. His relationship with Nick Perls of Yazoo records, led to three series of collector cards, all of which are reproduced in a larger 5 x 7 size in R. Crumb’s Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country.

Some legendary musicians are included in Heroes, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Son House, and Peetie Wheatstraw. However, there are many lesser known artists, like blues artist Rube Lacey, who “recorded two dance tunes for Paramount Records; four years later he became a minister.” (p. 40) As Crumb’s documentary biographer Terry Zwigoff explains in his introduction:

“The existence of available photographs partly determined the musicians he chose to include. It’s a minor miracle that someone had a photo of Mumford Bean and His Itawambians, a band so obscure that their one existing 78 has only been heard by maybe a dozen hard-core country collectors, and has never been reissued.”
The accompanying text by Stephen Calt, David Jasen, and Richard Nevins is actually most extensive in the country section, making some insightful connections between early blues and country. In describing the Shepherd Brothers, the following comparison is made:

“Melodically, many blues bear a notable resemblance to early white-fundamentalist religious music. The limited scales are almost identical and they share a common modality. If the speed of an archaic primitive Baptist hymn is doubled, the striking similarity to blues is apparent.” (p. 200)

Crumb’s art captures each musician’s personality. Notable was his choice to portray a young Sidney Bechet, instead of drawing from the more familiar photos of Bechet in his older Paris years. There are some interesting tidbits to, like the jazz clarinetist Jimmy Noone, appearing “with the Bowery Boys in the Monogram Pictures film Block Busters (1944) just before he died.” (p. 156)

Packaged with a cool sampler CD featuring tracks from featured artists like Noone, Benny Moten, Skip James, and Frank Stokes (for the record, that’s him featured on the cover), Heroes is a neat little volume. It should cross genre boundaries and maybe lead to interest in different, but in some cases frustratingly hard to find, artists.