Bibliotheca Universalis- Robert Crumb

Volume 4 spans the years 1982 to 1989 and is filled with his signature perversions (in country settings), scathing social commentary, cruel self-portraits, experimental cubism… and some lovely sylvan landscape. Expect this book to be met with the same high acclaim as the previous volumes of this series. 440 pages of Crumb’s work! 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, closedminded, 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; we only wish he’d chosen to include his prescient comic of Donald Trump from 1989.