Life in Crumbland

Terry Swigoff's Crumb was such a striking, definitive documentary on underground cartoonist Robert Crumb's life that it's very hard for me to believe that Robert, Aline and Sophie have not stayed frozen in time in their little home in the French countryside.

But like the rest of us, they've gotten older: Sophie's grown up, Crumb's cultivated a beard (!) and Aline's taken a local man as a lover. The New York Times catches up with them and examines daily life in Crumbland, a "bohemian court of artists, lovers, sycophants and jesters."

...since the Crumbs’ arrival, many of the achingly quaint, empty stone houses have attracted other newcomers. One of the first was Ms. Crumb’s brother, Alex Goldsmith, who lives in the lower ramparts of the Crumb home. Mr. Goldsmith, 54, said he had fought drug addiction, and if his sister had not welcomed him to France, “I’d probably be in prison, if I was alive.”

He earns money buying used R. Crumb comics on eBay, taking them upstairs for Mr. Crumb to sign and reselling them “for quadruple” on the Internet, Mr. Goldsmith said, smiling.

It's great to hear what's been going on with the recalcitrant Crumb over the years, although I am a bit shocked at how old and respectable he looks in a beard. This is not the man I think of when I think of nerdy perverts dry humping headless women. It's unnatural.

Mr. and Mrs. Natural [New York Times]