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Maxon Crumb

Meet Maxon Crumb -- brother of cartoonist Robert and quite the artist in his own right. The SF Gate has a nice writeup on him -- he is doing a lot better these days, taking some art commissions and more at home with other people -- a warm interview with an amazing portrait:

Still in the shadows, an artist in his own right
Judging by his appearance in "Crumb," Terry Zwigoff's 1995 documentary about an artistic and deeply troubled family, Maxon Crumb didn't seem long for this world. The younger brother of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb was filmed in his seedy hotel room, sitting on a bed of nails and begging for money on San Francisco sidewalks. He looked haunted, spiritually ransacked -- done in by the family abuse that drove his oldest brother, Charles, to suicide.

Twelve years later, Maxon Crumb still resides in the same Sixth Street dump, and still maintains an extreme spartan diet -- "only plant food" -- and an ascetic spiritual practice that includes long, holy-man treks to Bolinas Ridge, where he sits in lotus position for 12 hours at a time. But in the years since "Crumb" was released, he is no longer dependent on government assistance and has stopped panhandling and started supporting himself with his art. His paintings -- more intricate, surreal and disturbing than Robert's antic work -- sell for as much as $3,200; his ink drawings go for $1,200.

Screw the notion of a "thousand-yard stare"; this is the face of a man who has walked through Hell and emerged from the other side back into this plane. Posted by DaveH at October 4, 2006 9:39 PM