Robert Crumb (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 30, 1943) is an American cartoonist, illustrator, and musician. He was one of the founders of the underground comic movement and is perhaps the most prominent figure of that movement. Although he is one of the best-known comic book authors, his career has always developed outside the mainstream industry.
As a musician, he was part of the band R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders, dedicated to the dissemination of American popular music composed in the 1920s.
Crumb's graphic style mixes influences from early comic artists like Billy DeBeck, creator of the Barney Google strip, C.E. Brock, Rube Goldberg, and E.C. Segar (creator of Popeye). The author has also cited among his greatest influences Carl Barks (who drew Disney's Donald Duck comics), Harvey Kurtzman, and John Stanley, the second author of Little Lulu, which he adapted for long comics.
In the ideological field, the commentator Javier Coma observes in Crumb's early comics, "beneath his confrontation with the system, a critical stance towards the sociopolitical degenerations of the protest," noting "Crumb's nostalgic returns to a past anti-urban life, poetized by old customs and genuine popular music."
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