R. Crumb Sketchbook. Volume 4: Dec. 1982-Dec, 1989
by: Crumb, Robert

Hardcover. NY, Taschen, reprint, 2025, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Color frontispiece. Black & white illustrations throughout on every page. 11" high X 8" wide, 448 pages. The perfect tribute to the world's favorite dirty old man. It spans the years 1982 to 1989, a period when the artist was comfortably ensconced in rural California, raising his young daughter Sophie, who appears throughout this volume. But Crumb was still Crumb, declaring in one drawing, above a lovingly rendered tree, "As I get older I get more twisted, convoluted, depraved, cynical, embittered, self-centered, jaded, debauched, ruthless, greedy, conceited, set-in-my-ways, long-winded, absent-minded, prejudiced, closed-minded, misanthropic, nervous..." To prove this self-flagellating analysis he fills the pages with his signature perversions (in country settings), scathing social commentary, cruel self-portraits, experimental cubism... and some lovely sylvan landscape. His mastery of the Rapidograph pen is at its zenith here in his 40s, Clean, still in publisher's shrinkwrap.