Crumb on Writing

I recently watched the documentary "Crumb." Robert Crumb was a cartoonist, and quite a few writing craft type moments stood out that I'll share here.

(Spoilers, if you'd rather watch the documentary.)

He was discussing craft with his son, who is also a cartoonist, and his son said something about Robert being rich and famous. HIs dad said, "We're not talking about becoming rich and famous. We're talking about learning to draw."

They also discussed portraits. And his dad told his son to go ahead and cheat a little. They were drawing from photographs and the dad pointed out a slight sneer in the picture and told his son to make the sneer just a little more pronounced in the drawing than it was in the photo. To make the sneer more clear to whoever was viewing the drawing. "Go ahead, cheat a little."

Then he didn't drive, so one time he had a friend drive him around and he took photos of things like power boxes on the sides of buildings telephone lines. Then they showed the photos alongside his cartoons where he recreated them. "See how ugly that is? You can't make that up." He called that photo album his most valuable resource.

He had an older brother Charles, who was also a cartoonist. But he was mentally ill. He became obsessed with writing, to the point where he would not even write words but fill notebooks with wavy lines. It was interesting to compare the two. Robert, who was as eccentric as could be, but managed to still function as an artist. Robert did his own thing, no question, but he continued to do a thing people would at least have a chance to relate to. Charles, due to his mental illness, lost any touch with any possible audience. Charles was extreme, but it made me reflect on where that line is. An artist can create work so easily digestible by the mainstream that some would refuse to call it art any longer. But here, with Charles, was an example of an artist going to such an extreme of not relating to an audience that I don't think anyone could call it art any longer.

Interesting movie, if you haven't seen it, I recommend it. If you have, what were your thoughts?