![]() The work contains biblical scenes populated with classic R. He is illustrating the opening book of the Bible, Genesis, and spends hours in his study deep in the Crumb house consulting translations of Sumerian legends, Hebrew and Christian scholarly interpretations of the Bible and reproductions of illuminated manuscripts. "I am an adventurer of the present."Ĭrumb's current project has him spending a lot of time in the past. He was referring to a European avant-garde philosophy born in 1957 and championed by Guy Debord. "I am a Situationist," Coudurès explained in French after sharing a dinner with the Crumbs next to a crackling fireplace in his kitchen. His daughter Agathe McCamy, 35, helps Aline Crumb color her comics. The Frenchman, who has a thick mane of black hair, does handyman chores. Nonetheless, the strong-jawed Coudurès, 61, has become a part of the support system that frees Crumb to focus on work. She called the idea of her mother having a second husband "gross." Their daughter Sophie, now 25, who lives in a village a half-hour drive from her parents with her American boyfriend, is not so sure about the arrangement. "If she ever started making comparisons about our lovemaking technique, I might get jealous," Crumb added. Speaking of Coudurès, Crumb said, "Between the two of us, we kind of make an ideal husband, because he can do all the masculine things I can't do." He cited Coudurès's talents for wiring, plumbing, engaging in shouting matches with the highly energetic Aline Crumb and driving a car. Crumb travels to Oregon once a year to rekindle a relationship with an old girlfriend. The Crumbs have long had an open marriage, that brave (and largely discarded) institution of the 1960s. "I decided I needed to save this worthy person."Ĭoudurès eventually became what Aline Crumb calls her "second husband." "When I first met him, he was in bad shape, drinking a lot," she said. ![]() When he was depressed after breaking up with a girlfriend, Aline Crumb decided he was a project she wanted to take on. Crumb doodles to Morris for $2,500 each.Īnother village newcomer is Christian Coudurès, a printmaker, who moved from Paris. When his New York agent, Paul Morris, said that he had a market for the drawings, Aline Crumb offered to help one restaurateur sell his collection. Crumb comics on eBay, taking them upstairs for Robert Crumb to sign and reselling them "for quadruple" on the Internet, Goldsmith said, smiling.įor years, Crumb would occupy his time waiting to be served at village restaurants by doodling on place mats. Goldsmith, 54, said he had fought drug addiction, and if his sister had not welcomed him to France, "I'd probably be in prison, if I was alive." One of the first was Aline Crumb's brother, Alex Goldsmith, who lives in the lower ramparts of the Crumb home. Villagers preferred modern homes across the river, where streets are wide enough for two cars to pass.īut since the Crumbs' arrival, many of the achingly quaint, empty stone houses have attracted other newcomers. When the Crumbs moved to their village west of Nîmes - which they asked not be named, fearful of attracting streams of fans - many old houses were empty. Much of Crumbland's energy is devoted to preserving space for Crumb, 63, to continue his work and for everyone to feed off it. "He's a monolithic presence, who rewrote the rules of what comics are," Spiegelman said. In so doing, he laid the groundwork for adult-theme graphic novels, influencing everyone from Daniel Clowes, the creator of "Ghost World," to Art Spiegelman, the author of "Maus." He applied a lowbrow, all-but-forgotten crosshatched technique to a kaleidoscope of sexual fantasies, controversial racial topics and images of the hippie counterculture. It was Robert Crumb's absorption of such popular culture that led to his signature style. They reared her on "Little Lulu" comics from the 1940s and '50s and Three Stooges videos. The Crumbs also wanted to shield their daughter, Sophie, from a growing conservative and fundamentalist Christian influence while continuing to educate her in what they consider the classics. They moved to France 16 years ago, sickened, they said, by the infiltration of their once sleepy California town, Winters, by newcomers who bulldozed hilltops for McMansions. "We live in Crumbland," Aline Crumb said. They are surrounded by a bohemian court of artists, lovers, sycophants and jesters engaged in fits of intrigue. Crumb comic, the couple, known to many from the 1994 documentary "Crumb," which portrayed Robert Crumb's troubled early family life and adult predilection for riding piggyback on large women, have become something of a lord and lady in their village. In a twist as unlikely as the plot of an R. Although the brocaded costume was stiflingly hot - "I felt like a giant sweating chair," Aline Crumb said - it turns out the townsfolk were prescient.
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