Dan Nadel’s “Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life”

Dan Nadel joins Kate Wolf and Eric Newman to speak about his new biography, “Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life.”

By LARB Radio HourMay 30, 2025

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Dan Nadel joins Kate Wolf and Eric Newman to speak about his new biography, Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life. The book traces the life and art of Robert Crumb, arguably the most influential cartoonist of the last half century. Crumb emerged from the world of underground comics that he helped create in the late 1960s to both mainstream fame and commercial success. But he was a reticent celebrity who often felt at odds with the hippie culture that he became so identified with. Nadel sifts through the aspects of American culture that did inspire Crumb—from Disney cartoons to pre-war comic books to old blues 78s—and also looks closely at his troubled early life and complicated family. The book also faces the misogyny and racism in much of Crumb’s work and explores his long marriage to his wife and frequent collaborator, cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb.