I've never been one of those folks who thought the work of R.Crumb was all that special. As I grow older and even possibly wiser, my opinions on some of these things changes. My life experience makes me fonder of Crumb.
I've got some Crumb in the collection here and there, when I've found it cheap. But the only Crumb I've owned for any length of time is The Complete Fritz the Cat.
For some reason, likely the noterity Ralph Bakshi's movie gave the character I was attracted to the book at some point in the past, a past so foggy I don't remember where I got it from.
I'm a Bakshi fan, but again I've never seen Fritz the Cat the movie all the way through. I was just checking online to see what was available and found the copy below from Avant-Garde Cinema. The aspect of the dvd cover that jumped at me was the sanitized nature of the figures on the couch, the iconic Fritz scene.
Look where Fritz's hand is most certainly not. Every image of this classic pose, one of the most evocative of Crumb's images I know of, has Fritz briskly and fondling his girlfriend, the sexual nature of their encounter beyond doubt as she seems to help herself along with his knee. Here though his paw is perched benignly on her shoulder ahd her hand rests disinterested on her knee, undermining for me the very essence of what Fritz and Crumb stand for. His paw must be in her shirt, and she must like it! That's the whole point of the image, it's the very essence of Fritz!
Crumb is if anything transgressive. Bakshi is transgressive. Fritz is transgressive. They challenge the morals and the expectations. That's the whole frickin' point. To undermine that by making Fritz somehow more gentlemanly for the sake of mere commerce is to make me truly sad indeed.
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