represent

Let there be income

R. Crumb keeps on truckin’. He recently put in four years as a hired illustrator. And it was very good, apparently. I loved Classics Illustrated as a kid. He doesn’t exactly sound grateful, though. Blake would have loved the gig. From Paris Review:

INTERVIEWER

Let’s begin with Genesis. Where did this book come from?

R. CRUMB

Well, the truth is kind of dumb, actually. I did it for the money and I quickly began to regret it. It was an enormous amount of work—four years of work and barely worth it. I was too compulsive about the detail. With comics, you’ve got to develop some kind of shorthand. You can’t make every drawing look like a detailed etching. The average reader actually doesn’t want all that detail, it interferes with the flow of the reading process. But I just can’t help myself—obsessive-compulsive disorder.