I went into his office and he said, What can you do, what are your skills, what've you got to offer? I said, Well, I'm an artist, I draw.' Without a single drawing sample in hand, Crumb was scheduled for a job interview with American Greetings two days later, thanks to that employment agent.Ĭrumb began his career with American Greetings as a color separator until the cartoon sketches he had around his light table caught the eye of another department. I went to the Ohio state employment agency, and there was an old guy, I'll never forget him. I was determined to do anything for a job. 'When I got to Cleveland,' Crumb tells Ted Widmer in the Paris Review, 'I was determined to find a job and not go home, it was too depressing at home. Impressed by Foo, Pahls stayed in touch with Crumb until he graduated from Kent State and then invited Crumb to Cleveland. In 1962, Crumb was invited to live in Cleveland, Ohio, with his friend Marty Pahls, who had discovered him through Foo - an imitation of Mad Magazine that Crumb, at fifteen, and Charles created, Xeroxed, and tried to sell door-to-door for a dime.

'But then, you know, a lot of people were - nothing unusual about being an outcast in high school.'Īfter graduation, he spent a year at home, during which he drew a lot, read at the insistence of his brother, Charles, and endlessly discussed the meaning of life with Charles, who would remain at home and later commit suicide in 1993. 'I was one of those social rejects,' he says on the Official Crumb website. In high school, Crumb was not very popular and often felt alienated. Crumb also has a younger brother, Maxon, who creates abstract, Cubist-influenced oil paintings and lives in San Francisco. The two shared a love of comics and co-wrote comics together, which included early renditions of Crumb's famous character, Fritz the Cat. Crumb credits his older brother, Charles, for being his biggest influence growing up. Moving frequently during his childhood, Crumb and his family eventually settled in Delaware in 1956 when his father retired after 20 years in the US Marine Corps. Robert Crumb was born in West Philadelphia on August 30, 1943, to a Marine father and a Catholic mother.

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