Crumb Family Spaghetti Sauce Recipe a la Veronica
A shorter version of this post was originally published on the Criterion Collection website.
In August of this year, Robert Crumb was scheduled to give a talk at the Sydney Opera House in Australia as part of an exhibition of his work at their Graphic Arts Festival. The first issue arose as the federal Attorney General noted, according to an article in the Sunday Telegraph: "that Crumb's work cannot be shown in Australia unless he submits his illustrations for classification. The spokesman said his work would almost certainly be refused classification."
If that wasn't enough to set the publicity and, in general, human shy Crumb off, the article went on to quote an "anti-child abuse campaigner" (as if there are pro-child abuse campaigners? Who knows? I've never visited Australia) who declared with the authority of someone who must spend her life writing dissertations on art history when not abuse campaigning: "These cartoons are not funny or artistic - they are just crude and perverted images emanating from what is clearly a sick mind.... Of all the brilliant artists, cartoonists and writers the Opera House and council could have supported, you have to wonder why they chose Robert Crumb."
The 67 year-old Crumb, of course, now had the perfect excuse to stay at home in his French retreat. He told the Australian, "It was strong stuff and it made me look very, very bad.... All it takes is a few people who overreact to something like that to show up and cause unpleasantness. I have a lot of anxiety about having to confront some angry sexual assault crisis group.... I do these crazy cartoons, I have no defense. I just have to throw up my hands.... I told [the festival co-curator] that I'm not coming and to cancel the whole thing."
