Crumb Page #2

- Not really, no.

- Not interested in them?

- Most aren't that good or interesting.

They're not as interesting

as the Victorian writers...

of the late 19th century.

I always kind of envied your life

in a way.

My life has become so hectic.

Why? Because I was so detached

from the human race?

Is that one of the reasons

why you envy me?

This cloistered environment

with your books.

Believe me, it's nothing to envy.

Charles started this comic thing.

He was completely obsessed with comics

when we were kids...

and had absolutely no other

normal kid interest.

He wasn't interested in toys or games.

He didn't play sports.

He didn't do anything but read comics,

draw comics, think comics and talk them.

I like drawing, but I had other

drawing interests besides comics.

I liked to draw realistic scenes...

just pictures of buildings

and cars and stuff.

He wasn't interested in that at all.

It was only comics.

This is the earliest one that still

exists that I have. Charles drew this.

That's supposed to be me,

and that's him.

You made me feel absolutely worthless

if I wasn't drawing comics.

I don't think I would have done that.

I don't think I was as far gone as that.

Maybe I was just unconsciously

imitating the old man.

- What was he like?

- My father was an overbearing tyrant.

Yes, he was.

Maybe I was unconsciously imitating him

when I forced you to draw comic books.

There's still a kind of sibling rivalry

between me and Robert...

like there was when we were kids

and he was still living at home.

I think basically Robert and I

are still competing with each other.

It's like when I'm drawing comics,

I still think of Charles' approval...

whether or not he's going to like them.

Charles had everybody drawing comics

in the family.

The Animal Town Publishing Company.

That was a club we had...

where we sat around

and talked about comics.

I was usually the president.

Robert was usually the vice president.

Carol was usually the secretary...

and Sandy was the treasurer

and Maxon was the supply boy.

And he still resents that.

He still resents the fact we imposed

the role of supply boy on him.

Max Crumb in room 310?

Maxon was the scapegoat in the family.

Of five kids, he was definitely

on the bottom of the heap.

Just to explain...

we had these meetings for this club

Charles put together called...

The Animal Town Comics Club.

Something to do with comics.

Everybody had their job, a secretary,

a president, a vice president.

I was supply boy.

I got it more heavy or direct than

Robert, but there was the whole thing.

It was like a crazy sibling thing

between me, Charles and Robert...

in this room upstairs...

and the world didn't know

what the f*** was going on.

It was like three primordial monkeys

working it out in the trees.

Me and Maxon slept in the same bed

until we were 16 or something.

Very intimate, close situation.

Charles was inspired

by the Disney movie...

where Robert Newton plays

Long John Silver.

After we saw it on TV in 1955...

we started playing pirates

like normal kids do.

We'd go out and pretend.

We made this ship

out of an old refrigerator carton.

Charles would walk around town

dressed up like Long John Silver.

He had this old coat of my mother's,

this long, green coat.

He made himself a three-cornered hat

out of some woman's hat.

He had a crutch, and he'd tie up his leg

and go around town that way.

I didn't realize how fixated Charles was

on Treasure Island till years later.

This thing dominated our play

and our fantasy for six or seven years.

We drew these comics...

about Treasure Island, ' and it became

this real Baroque, elaborate thing...

way beyond the original Disney film.

This is one of Charles'.

This is one of our two-man comics

in which he would draw...

some of the characters and I would

draw some and have them interact.

That was a great school

of cartooning for me...

having to come up

with clever retorts to him.

He was actually much cleverer

and funnier than I was.

It got tiresome, but you had to do it.

He was in charge.

I had this very definite,

bad problem about Charles.

I think a lot of it had to do

with my morbid sensitivity to the guy...

as well as his natural affinity

to get in there and profit off it.

Robert was somewhat of a middleman.

It had this way of restricting...

or causing this terrible

self-consciousness in me as a kid.

I was morbidly modest about my body.

Sex was completely removed.

When it came time for me to become

sexually aware when I was in puberty...

Sex was nowhere near in my life.

I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Sex was so heavily repressed.

That's when the seizures started.

I had a seizure. And a seizure's like

a point where your behavior becomes...

I'd have to get into the whole sex trip,

which is an awful involved topic.

All I thought about when I was

in my late teens and early 20s was sex.

I masturbated about four or five times

a week. How frequently did you...

I don't masturbate anymore now that

my sexual desires are completely dead.

Like I told you,

I can't get an erection anymore.

My God!

I don't know whether it's one thing

or a combination of things.

Maybe a combination of the medication

and lack of external stimulation.

Maybe approaching old age

has something to do with it. Who knows?

You need some external stimulation

to keep up your interest.

Now that my sexual desires are gone,

I'm not sure I want them back again.

My earliest sexual memories?

I remember being like four years old

and getting erections.

I guess my aunt or my mother's sister...

Humping her legs and her shoes

like under the table.

I remember going in my mother's closet.

She had cowboy boots...

she wore when it rained...

and humping those in the closet.

And I remember singing while doing it.

Jesus loves me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so

I remember...

when I was about five or six

I was sexually attracted to Bugs Bunny.

I cut out this Bugs Bunny

off the cover of a comic book...

and carried it around with me

in my pocket...

and took it out

and looked at it periodically.

It got wrinkled from handling.

I asked my mother to iron it

to flatten it out.

She did, and I was deeply disappointed

because it got all brown and brittle...

and it crumbled apart.

What was it about Bugs Bunny

that you found exciting?

I had this sexual attraction

to cute cartoon characters.

You tell me!

I don't know.

That all changed when I turned 12,

and I became fixated on Sheena.

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, '

a TV show around '55, '56.

I became totally obsessed with Sheena

and went to bed every night...

thinking about the things

I wanted to do with Sheena.

Robert was very hung up on sex

when he was a little kid...

even more so than I was.

- I was? You think so?

- Yeah.

You were more inhibited as a child

than I was, even sexually.

You were more afraid of women than I was

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