Robert Crumb & Art Spiegelman with Françoise Mouly
Past Performance
November 13, 2009, 8:00 pm
Bass Concert Hall
$52/38/26/10(students)
Presented in partnership with the UT Department of Art & Art History
“Art Spiegelman…to the comics world is a Michelangelo and a Medici both, an influential artist who is also an impresario and an enabler of others.” – New York Times Magazine
“Mr. Crumb…excruciatingly funny satirist of all things modern and progressively high-minded, and an intrepid explorer of his own twisted psyche – remains the genre’s gold standard.” – New York Times
In a rare one-night only event, three of the most influential comic artists of the last forty years come together to discuss their careers, comic books, cover designs and culture.
In the 1960s Robert Crumb was at the forefront of a revolution in American alternative comic arts. Considered a grandmaster of his artform, he penned well-known characters and series including Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat, Joe Blow and Keep on Truckin’. His colorful career has been riddled with legal battles, obscenity arrests and critical acclaim. Crumb is set to publish his long-awaited “The Book of Genesis” in the Fall of 2009.
Art Spiegelman is an award-winning American comic artist who is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel memoir, Maus, a treatise on the Holocaust. Among the genre’s most celebrated counter-culture icons, he is also an editor and advocate for the comic arts genre and is married to artist and designer Françoise Mouly, with whom he frequently collaborates.
Mouly was born in Paris and is highly regarded for her work with RAW, a showcase publication for cutting edge, mature comic art. She has also served as the arts editor of The New Yorker since 1993 and has curated several exhibits featuring the literary magazine’s famous cover art.
Note: For Mature Audiences – Sexual Content
Campus & Community Engagement Events
Pre-Performance Lecture: R. Crumb, Spiegelman, Mouly
CRUMB: CONTROVERSY CONTROVERSY CONTROVERSY!
Read about the elusive artist’s recent appearances and the chaos that ensued:
Letter: Rape = Academic Freedom? – The Collegian University of Richmond’s student newspaper
R. Crumb exhibit and conversation spark controversy – The Collegian
Newsflash: Robert Crumb Is Controversial – Slog the blog of Seattle’s The Stranger
Ed’s Thoughts on the Crumb/Mouly Event – Comics Worth Reading blog
R. Crumb w/ Françoise Mouly in Richmond, VA, October 27, 2009 Part 2: Music, Genesis, Open Questions – Comics Worth Reading blog
REVIEWS & MORE
In the beginning, R. Crumb was a staunch Roman Catholic – Austin American-Statesman
Illustrator R. Crumb is drawn to God with his latest project – USA Today review
The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis – UCLA’s Hammer Museum exhibit
R. Crumb and the miracle of his ‘Book of Genesis Illustrated’ – LA Times book review
The creation of R. Crumb’s ‘Genesis’ – LA Times article
Robert Crumb Thinks God Might Actually Be Crazay – Vanity Fair interview
Video – R. Crumb in Conversation with Francoise Mouly recorded Barnes & Noble on 10.23.09
‘Genesis’: R. Crumb Illustrates The Bible – NPR’s Talk of the Nation
A (Secret) Life in Music – The Wall Street Journal article on Crumb
Audio – Crumb’s ‘Genesis,’ A Sexy Breasts-And-Knuckles – NPR’s Morning Edition
Audio – R. Crumb’s Awesome, Affecting Take On ‘Genesis’ – NPR’s All Things Considered
Video – Behind the Cover: The Money Issue – The New Yorker
Sketching His Way Through Genesis – New York Times review
Virginia Commonwealth University R. Crumb resources, including articles, interviews and more
US cartoonist Crumb zaps the Bible
R. Crumb Website
As an educational institution committed to academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas, Texas Performing Arts and The University of Texas at Austin are proud to present a rich array of performing arts for the Austin and Central Texas Community.
Occasionally that programming touches on controversial topics and artists.
The performance may include subject matter that is considered by some to be controversial due to sexual, religious, political or other content.
While we do not necessarily condone or endorse the views of the artist, we acknowledge that the role of art is to create opportunities for conversation, sometimes about the most difficult of topics.
Furthermore, sponsorship of Texas Performing Arts does not imply endorsement of the views of the artist by the sponsors or their representatives.
It was nice
If you wanted insight into the creative processes, watch the movie or read any number of previous interviews. This was billed as a conversation and it was great.
Next time when something like this comes around, can we make an announcement that the comic book dorks are forbidden to ask for signatures so they increase the value of their collections?
That was embarrassing.
Crumb - Spiegelman Conversation
The event was so intimate! The stage set up, the presentation of the slides, the tenor and tempo of the event were all thoroughly enjoyable. I felt like this gave me a chance to see the real people and mechanisms behind the larger than life names and reputations. I am inspired.
Crumb & Spiegelman
Odd and disappointing. They rambled about things of old and not sure what else. I was hoping to hear of their creative process, maybe how they draw, develop a book. Something on their passions, interests. A reading from something current, as other authors do. Not worth the price of a ticket.
Crumb/spiegelman/Mouly
I had the Flu and missed the whole thing. Can I get some kind of refund?
Fantastic
I suppose I was one of the lucky people in the crowd who sat orchestra-side and was able to hear and experience everything almost like a cozy lecture. I personally enjoyed watching the two of them talk and experiencing Crumb and Spiegelman’s personalities side-by-side. Cartoonists like them are what inspired me as a kid to become a cartoonist myself.
Also – as far as a response to those that mentioned they were tired: they’re cartoonists, not performers. I think if you expected to get a performance out of the three of them, you’d be disappointed, but if you came to appreciate them as artists, you got some pretty insight into their minds and lives.
Crumb/Spiegelman
As the Director of Texas Performing Arts, I wanted you to know that neither Crumb nor Spiegelman would agree to a book signing. They did, however, agree to pre-sign 100 books each and they were offered for sale by our friends at BookPeople. All pre-signed copies of Genesis were purchased before the show even started.
The program we presented here in Austin was, in fact, part of Mr. Crumb’s US book tour which included only five US dates. The Austin program was the only one of the five to add Mr. Spiegelman to the mix. I thought it made for an interesting evening of conversation, but understand that not everyone has the same experience at any given event.
Thanks for writing and listening.
kp
I thought it was great. Not
I thought it was great. Not sure what the commenter above expected with the q and a. All of the questions were repeated over the microphone…
Good fun but cold
An interesting evening, certainly made all the better for Mouly’s moderating. Whoever drafted her for the job deserves a gold star.
Altogether great, but the theater was freezing cold. I was sitting in the rear — somewhere between HH and Z) on the first level and I cannot even tell you how chilly it was back there. Maybe the staff was trying to keep Spiegelman’s smoke onstage with a big bank of cold air, or perhaps the thermostat was set for a larger — and therefore hotter — crowd.
Next time I come — which will be soon, I am sure — I will bring a sweater.
Enjoyed this immensely
I enjoyed the discussion immensely, and thought the sound was fine, except for the Q&A, where the questions could not be heard from the cheap seats. Especially interesting to me were the discussion by both Crumb and Spiegelman about the length and breadth of their careers, how they’d grown and matured over the years. Crumb especially seemed kind of embarrassed by some of the things he said and did in his younger days (as well as a wee bit proud), and I always say, if you’re not a little embarrassed by who you used to be, you are not trying hard enough.
God Bless Francoise Mouly, she caught on quick and started repeating the questions back to the audience, otherwise it was a very surreal experience when Spiegelman would just start talking about something with no context. I thought she did an excellent job keeping the discussion remotely on topic though frankly, Spiegelman and Crumb rambling around worked pretty well for me.
FWIW my partner, who is wholly ignorant of the entire genre and who the people were on stage, found it fascinating.
Great subjects, poor execution
Crumb, Spiegelman, and Mouly were excellent. The venue was OK, I agree it could have been more intimate, especially considering it did not sell out. Perhaps that was also due to the exorbitant seat prices. Considering this event was part of a promotional tour that the artistes were already being paid for and and profiting from, I thought it was greedy how much UT changed for seats. I understand they need to pay for the venue, but $50 a seat for us non-UT discount eligible suckers? The pre-show “lecture” was less interesting and useful than watching various comics artists’ live drawing streams.
However, the single thing that irked me the most was that up until the day of the show, the listing on this page indicated that there would be a “book signing”, not the more accurate “sale of signed books”. I already had two copies of Crumb’s latest that I brought with the intent of having them signed and meeting the artist, however briefly; and instead I had to shell out for another copy. This was blatantly false advertising.
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