Crumb by Terry Zwigoff is the story of comics legend Robert Crumb who grew up in a family of a Marine Corps officer and a unhappy housewife. Crumb is a disturbed artistic genius who can be considered a misogynistic artist or a genius working out his id through disturbing art.

Robert Crumb is one of the geniuses from the underground comix movement of the late 60s and early 70s. His drawings included Fritz the Cat, Mr Natural and Keep on Trucking. He was also instrumental in getting Harvey Pekar to start work on American Splendor. He had an unhappy childhood with a fighting family with older brother Charles and younger brother Max (and two sisters who are not featured in the movie). Charles pushed the other brothers into doing comics and that started a lifetime of art for all three of them.

Charles slowly drifted into insanity during high school and spent the later years of his life refusing to leave his mom’s house (and committed suicide between the filming and release of the movie). Max drifted into his own psychological issues and currently lives a monk like existence. And with all of Robert’s issues and misogynistic tendencies, he’s probably the most normal of the brothers.

The movie follows Robert attempt to move his family to France. Along the way he goes over his art, talks to his family and friends and has some experts debating his impact in the art world and whether he is a genius or a misogynistic menace. Zwigoff was a long time friend of Crumb and that allowed him deeper access than almost anyone else would have had. He uses this access to get Robert to open up and show people a lot more of his life than previously seen.

This is a wonderful, highly emotional movie and probably one of the more depressing movies I’ve ever seen. The first time I saw it, I invited a friend who had already seen it and he refused since he didn’t think he could handle watching it a second time. Crumb is an amazing documentary that is very depressing and very powerful. Highly recommended.