(Concluding our review of past episodes featuring the work of R. Crumb.)
FLASHBACK! Tim and Kumar meet in person for the first time! This calls for a podcast, but… what to review? We discuss the movie Crumb, which features not only the expected discussion of R. Crumb’s work (including an objective look at the question of whether some of the … discomforting subjects of his work should really have been published as “art”), but also a fascinating portrait of the dysfunctional family he grew up in.
Then, Tim and Brandon clash over Sean Murphy’s Punk Rock Jesus, in which a former Irish Republican Army member acts as a bodyguard in a reality show claiming to be creating the clone of Jesus Christ. Is it objective and well-written, or a promo brochure for atheism? (Originally published November 2, 2015)
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FLASHBACK! A then-recent R. Crumb compilation is reviewed by a Crumb connoisseur (Kumar) and a Crumb newbie (Tim). The book features Crumb at his sweetest and his most shocking. But can this (or any book) claim to be the perfect Crumb compilation? (Originally published June 30, 2008.)
Perhaps one of the most puzzling comics releases in years was The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb. While it’s a virtuoso art performance, the exact purpose of the book was puzzling to Crumb fans (“It’s not a parody?!”) and religious readers (“This comic is not for kids?!”) alike. Both groups have been taken aback by how straight Crumb plays it — neither parodying nor bowdlerizing the work. That’s not to say that nothing in it is Crumb’s own interpretation. Tim and John discuss the issues raised — both by Crumb and by his audience.
Tim Across America, part 7! Gordon McAlpin has put in more than a decade on the popular Web comic 
Weirdo was a magazine started by R. Crumb, which featured Crumb’s work alongside that of a number of other underground-type comics creators. Crumb’s work from Weirdo’s 28 issues has just been collected as R. Crumb: The Weirdo Years, 1981-’93, released in the U.S. by Last Gasp. It features an astonishing variety of comics work, from Crumb rants and confessionals to a 1906 psychiatric report on sexual deviancy, fumetti, parodies, and more. This is a book that Deconstructing Comics can’t help but review, so this week Kumar and Tim do their podcasting duty!
The recent Sydney Graphic Festival, held August 20 & 21, featured a variety of artists from comics and other media in panels and the like. Kumar attended, and discusses what he saw there (and the one huge, disappointing