MR. CRUMB SENDS HIS REGRETS

Robert Crumb was scheduled to appear at the Opera House in Sydney, Australia, during the graphic arts festival there August 20-21. He was to take the stage “In Conversation” with Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth, whose part in the conversation would be, chiefly, asking Crumb questions. But when Murdoch’s Sunday Telegraph took a look at some of Crumb’s big bootied broads and what Crumb’s comics did to them, it screamed in outrage—“Cult Genius or Filthy Weirdo”— and rolled out “professional pearl-clutcher Hetty Johnston,” a campaigner on behalf of victims of sexual assault, who objected to the “depraved thought processes of this very warped human being. These cartoons are not funny or artistic,” she ranted on, “they are just crude and perverted images emanating from what is clearly a sick mind.”

Then a spokesperson for the federal Attorney General’s department said Crumb’s work could probably not be shown in Australia unless the cartoonist submitted his drawings for classification—and, most probably, they would be refused classification. Some sort of bureaucratic moral green card, I assume.

On August 9, Andrew Tijs at The Enthusiast chimed in: “Anxiety and neurosis are hallmarks of Crumb’s work, but we in Australia know Hetty Johnston is nothing more than a headline grabber and toothlesss crank, wheeled out when writers want to inch closer to the front page of tabloids by using ‘shock,’ ‘outrage’ or ‘sick’ in a three-word 72-point screamer headline.”

But by August 13, Crumb had endured enough of a continuing bombardment of outraged Aussie sensibility and cancelled his appearance. In an open letter posted at the Sydney Morning Herald website, he explained that the fevers engendered by the furor suggested that he might be physically attacked by the morally outraged if he showed up. His wife feared for his life and persuaded him to cancel. 

Wrote Crumb: “Aline and I went round and round about this thing: should I go or not? Ultimately, she could not shake her feeling of ominous dread. I knew that if I went, that she would be in a state of anxiety the whole time I was gone. She'd be praying for me, I know her. I couldn't do it to her. Finally, I told her I wasn't going. She broke down and wept as I held her. ...

“Sorry, folks. I do feel bad, as I hate letting people down. But I decided I'd rather bear the pain of letting people down than subject my long-suffering wife to a 10-day period of dread and anxiety for my well-being. She's been awfully nice to me since I told her I wasn't going! She baked a chocolate cake even!

“I know, I know,” he continued, “it's galling to give the Sunday Telegraph sleazeballs the satisfaction. ‘Ha ha, we scared him off.’ But they have already got what they wanted out of me anyway, which was to use me to make the City of Sydney look bad.

“The worst part is the apparent irresponsibility of these cynical media hacks. What if I'd gone there, and what if some Mark Chapman-type person who'd read that article decided the world needed to be cleansed of scum like R. Crumb? (Mark Chapman shot John Lennon.) This possibility worried Aline deeply.

“Did it occur to the people at the Sunday Telegraph that they might be stirring up such dangerous passions? Do they care? Their article showed a profound lack of integrity and social responsibility. And unfortunately, I was made the object of their hateful Machiavellian tactics. One wonders if they would have published more such anti-Crumb articles if I'd showed up in Sydney, or possibly even orchestrated some sort of public demonstration against me! Yipe!”

Footnit: You can read Crumb’s complete letter here.

Comments

[Funny rants]

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