I've just watched Terry Zwigoff's documentary on Robert Crumb which told the story of his upbringing from memories of ex-wives and girlfriends and his very strange brothers Charles and Max.
All three were/are gifted artists but had a fair share of madness mixed in with the talent.
Robert is the creator of Mr Natural and Fritz the Cat and early creator of the underground comics of the late 60's and early 70's that depicted psychedelic San Francisco and the hippie counter culture.
I remember seeing his cartoons in university magazines like Craccum. They were always a bit crazy and risque - a lot of fun.
This documentary is very well made and, it's old (made in 1990/91). I'd never heard of it before.
It's one of the pleasant discoveries I've made by borrowing DVDs from the library.
As we haven't subscribed to cable TV and cannot get free TV reception we only use the TV for watching videos on. Toronto has a lot of libraries with several being very conveniently accessible from subway stations so every week I visit and borrow (free for 7 days) as many DVDs as I think we can watch. Apart from interesting films (and there is a great selection of foreign films that are not in general release) I borrow TV series like Justified, MadMen, Third Watch, Dexter, Frost, Wallender etc and also documentaries and reality films. That's how I discovered Crumb and I'm glad I did.
When we return to NZ I doubt that we'll subscribe to SKY TV and will just continue doing what we've been doing.
We catch up on news via the Internet anyway.
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