DALLAS, TX.- The rare original art for a four-page story by Robert Crumb, one of the most prominent artists of the Underground Comix movement of the 1960s, could bring $120,000 or more in
Heritage Auctions Comics & Comics Auction April 30-May 3 in Dallas, Texas.
Robert Crumb CoEvolution Quarterly #14 Complete 4-Page Story "R. Crumb's Modern Dance Workshop" Original Art (Point, 1977) (estimate: $100,000+) is a four-page story that many of the artists fans will recognize from when it was reprinted in Best Buy Comics #nn from Apex Novelties in 1979, during a peak period during the artists long career. In the story, Crumb himself always the artists best known character directs a womens modern dance troupe, in his inimitable fashion. Crumb pioneered such fantastical autobiographical comics and the ink-on-Bristol board pages are done in ink with incredible detail; the first page is signed and dated lower left.
"Robert Crumb is an extremely important figure, a pioneer in the history of comic art, and his artwork always is in extremely high demand among collectors, Heritage Auctions Comics & Comic Art Director Joe Mannarino said. "Throughout his career, he has taken an edgy, sometimes risqué look at the world through an adult lens, and this four-page story is a revealing look at the way he and women sometimes interact with each other.
Crumb was a prolific artist who contributed to a number of important projects in the counterculture Underground Comix movement of the 1960s. He was one of the founders of the first successful Underground Comix publication, Zap Comix, for which he contributed to all 16 issues, and contributed to other publications, such as East Village Other. His contributions also include introductions of a wide variety of characters, some of whom including Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural became extremely popular. His works, including the offered lot, often included sexual and/or countercultural images and themes.
The CoEvolution Quarterly, which was produced from 1974-85, was a journal that descended from Stewart Brands Whole Earth Catalog.