A Short History of America

Last updated
"A Short History of America"
Story Robert Crumb
InkRobert Crumb
DateFall 1979
Pages4
Layout12 panels (updated to 15 in 1988)
First publicationCoEvolution Quarterly no. 23

"A Short History of America" is a 1979 comic by American cartoonist Robert Crumb, first published by CoEvolution Quarterly and later reprinted that same year in Snoid Comics by Kitchen Sink Press. The work depicts the transformation of the American wilderness into a state of urban decay caused by human development while reflecting the green, environmental themes popular with the counterculture of the 1970s. It is considered one of Crumb's most famous works outside his usual genre of underground comix. Along with "Keep On Truckin'" (1968) and the cover art for Cheap Thrills (1968), "A Short History of America" is one of the most reproduced and anthologized of Crumb's works. [1] American artist Chris Ware called it "one of the best comic strips ever drawn". [2]

Contents

Description

Crumb presents the original 12 panels beginning with an image of a wilderness. A forest is shown with animals grazing in a nearby meadow; birds fly across the sky. There are no humans. As each panel appears, some length of time passes, and with it, great change. Phases of land development and technological change brought on by the industrial revolution are depicted. Throughout the 12 panels, the same, but altered scene appears, with only changes brought on by people. These changes turn the wilderness into an urbanized landscape dotted with buildings, roads, and power supplies, slowly displacing nature as the forests disappear, tree by tree. The last of the 12 panels poses a question as a caption: "What next?!"

Almost a decade after Crumb published the original comic, he added a new epilogue with three additional panels providing possible answers to the question of "what next?" and showing three different futures. The 13th panel, a "Worst Case Scenario: Ecological Disaster", shows the same scene, but this time the cityscape is abandoned and in disuse; it is a scene of ecocide. Contrary to this devastation, a new 14th panel shows the possibility of "The Fun Future, Techno-fix on the March!" It is a space age vision of the future that manages to find technological solutions to the environmental problem with the environment somewhat preserved, but receding into the background as technology dominates the landscape. The final 15th panel depicts what Crumb describes as the "Ecotopian Solution", which has brought humanity into a more harmonious relationship with nature by bringing the environment into the foreground. In the final panel, the forests have reclaimed their previous lost space and people are shown riding bikes near a geodesic dome, with others playing music beneath the trees. [3]

Critical reception

VR pioneer Michael Naimark compares Crumb's work to that of Children's Games (1560) by 16th-century Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Both pieces, Naimark argues, are examples of "place-based works depicting 'accumulated' views", with Crumb using the different panels over time, while Bruegel shows them simultaneously. [4] Daniel Worden of Rochester Institute of Technology sees "A Short History of America" as a parody and continuation of the five-part series The Course of Empire (1833–1836) by American landscape painter Thomas Cole (1801–1848). Like Crumb's work, The Course of Empire shows the same landscape over many different generations, from a natural state to the creation of an empire, and finally its decline. Unlike Cole, however, Crumb's addition of three new panels in 1981 shows that a future might be possible. [5] American artist Chris Ware called it "one of the best comic strips ever drawn". [6]

Publication history

The original comic is in black and white ink, consisting of a total of twelve panels. [7] It was first published by CoEvolution Quarterly in the fall of 1979. [8] It was reprinted that same year in Snoid Comics by Kitchen Sink Press. In 1981, a new version was released by Kitchen Sink Press, with Peter Poplaski adding color to the original work and turning it into a commercial poster for sale. [9] In 1988, Crumb created another version, adding an epilogue consisting of three additional panels. [10]

Exhibitions

A 1993 serigraph of "A Short History of America" was exhibited in 2009 in the show Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin. [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Crumb</span> American illustrator and cartoonist (b. 1943)

Robert Dennis Crumb is an American cartoonist who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Underground comix</span> Comics genre

Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality, and violence. They were most popular in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, and in the United Kingdom in the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aline Kominsky-Crumb</span> American cartoonist (1948–2022)

Aline Kominsky-Crumb was an American underground comics artist. Kominsky-Crumb's work, which is almost exclusively autobiographical, is known for its unvarnished, confessional nature. In 2016, ComicsAlliance listed Kominsky-Crumb as one of twelve women cartoonists deserving of lifetime achievement recognition. She was married to cartoonist Robert Crumb, with whom she frequently collaborated. Their daughter, Sophie Crumb, is also a cartoonist.

Dennis Worden is an American comic book writer and artist best known as the creator of the comic book Stickboy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kitchen Sink Press</span> American comic book publisher

Kitchen Sink Press was a comic book publishing company founded by Denis Kitchen in 1970. Kitchen Sink Press was a pioneering publisher of underground comics, and was also responsible for numerous republications of classic comic strips in hardcover and softcover volumes. One of their best-known products was the first full reprint of Will Eisner's The Spirit—first in magazine format, then in standard comic book format. The company closed in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trina Robbins</span> American cartoonist and writer (born 1938)

Trina Robbins is an American cartoonist. She was an early participant in the underground comix movement, and one of the first female artists in that movement. She is a member of the Will Eisner Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denis Kitchen</span> American underground cartoonist and publisher

Denis Kitchen is an American underground cartoonist, publisher, author, agent, and the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mr. Natural (character)</span> Comics character

Mr. Natural is a comic book character created and drawn by 1960s counterculture and underground comix artist Robert Crumb. First appearing in Yarrowstalks (1967), the character gained a following during the emergence of underground comix in the 1960s and 1970s, and has been extensively merchandised in various products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Noomin</span> American comics artist (1947–2022)

Diane Robin Noomin was an American comics artist associated with the underground comics movement. She is best known for her character DiDi Glitz, who addresses transgressive social issues such as feminism, female masturbation, body image, and miscarriages.

Robert Triptow is an American writer and artist. He is known primarily for creating gay- and bisexual-themed comics and for editing Gay Comix in the 1980s, and he was identified by underground comix pioneer Lee Marrs as "the last of the underground cartoonists."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angelfood McSpade</span> Comics character

Angelfood McSpade is a comic book character created and drawn by the 1960s counter culture figure and underground comix artist Robert Crumb. The character first appeared in the Philadelphia-based underground newspaper Yarrowstalks #2 in July 1967, making her comics debut in the second issue of Zap Comix.

<i>Bijou Funnies</i>

Bijou Funnies was an American underground comix magazine which published eight issues between 1968 and 1973. Edited by Chicago-based cartoonist Jay Lynch, Bijou Funnies featured strong work by the core group of Lynch, Skip Williamson, Robert Crumb, and Jay Kinney, as well as Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton, Justin Green, and Kim Deitch. Bijou Funnies was heavily influenced by Mad magazine, and, along with Zap Comix, is considered one of the titles to launch the underground comix movement.

<i>Comix Book</i> Underground comic book series

Comix Book is an underground comic book series published from 1974 to 1976, originally by Marvel Comics. It was the first comic of this type to be published by a mainstream publisher. Edited by Denis Kitchen, Comix Book featured work by such underground luminaries as Justin Green, Kim Deitch, Trina Robbins, Art Spiegelman, and S. Clay Wilson. While it did not depict the explicit content that was often featured in underground comix, it was more socially relevant than anything Marvel had previously published.

Leonard Rifas is an American cartoonist, critic, editor, and publisher associated with underground comix, comics journalism, left-wing politics, and the anti-nuclear movement. He is notable for his contributions to the form of minicomics as well as publishing Japanese manga in the United States. Rifas' publishing company, EduComics, operated most actively from 1976 to 1982.

Carl Vaughn Frick – often credited as Vaughn Frick or simply Vaughn – is an alternative cartoonist known for the exploration of gay, environmental, HIV/AIDS awareness, and radical political themes in his comics. His Watch Out! Comix #1 (1986) was an influential gay-themed comic, one of the first by an openly gay male cartoonist. His work was also included in issues of Gay Comix,Meatmen, Strip AIDS, No Straight Lines, and So Fey, a collection of Radical Faerie fiction.

<i>Twisted Sisters</i> (comic) All-female underground comics anthology

Twisted Sisters is an all-female underground comics anthology put together by Aline Kominsky and Diane Noomin, and published in various iterations. In addition to Kominsky and Noomin, contributors to Twisted Sisters included M. K. Brown, Dame Darcy, Julie Doucet, Debbie Drechsler, Mary Fleener, Phoebe Gloeckner, Krystine Kryttre, Carol Lay, Dori Seda, and Carol Tyler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cartoonists' Co-op Press</span> Comics publishing cooperative

Cartoonists Co-op Press was an underground comix publishing cooperative based in San Francisco that operated from 1973 to 1974. It was a self-publishing venture by cartoonists Kim Deitch, Bill Griffith, Jerry Lane, Jay Lynch, Willy Murphy, Diane Noomin, and Art Spiegelman. Cartoonist Justin Green's brother Keith acted as salesman/distributor, and the operation was run out of Griffith's apartment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snoid</span> Underground comix character created by Robert Crumb

The Snoid, occasionally referred to as Mr. Snoid, is an American underground comix character created by Robert Crumb in the mid-1960s. A diminutive sex fiend and irritating presence, the Snoid often appears with other Crumb characters, particularly Angelfood McSpade, Mr. Natural, and Crumb's own self-caricature.

ProJunior, sometimes styled as Pro Junior, is an American comics character created by Don Dohler in 1958. He debuted in a fanzine in 1961, and in underground comix in 1970. Known as "Baltimore's blasphemous bad boy", the character is unusual in the underground genre for being "shared" by a number of different creators, appearing in stories by Jay Lynch, Art Spiegelman, Skip Williamson, and Robert Crumb. His main period of popularity was from 1970 to 1972.

<i>Home Grown Funnies</i> 1971 underground comic book

Home Grown Funnies is a single-issue underground comic book written and illustrated by Robert Crumb. Containing stories with staple Crumb characters Whiteman, the Snoid, and Angelfood McSpade, Home Grown Funnies went through sixteen printings by Kitchen Sink Press, selling at least 160,000 copies, and has been referred to as one of Crumb's longest-lived comics.

References

  1. Worden 2021, p. 81.
  2. Lus Arana 2019.
  3. Kirk 2016, pp. 307-308.
  4. Naimark 2002, p. 28.
  5. Worden 2021.
  6. Lus Arana 2019.
  7. Worden 2021, p. 79; Calonne 2021, p. 19.
  8. Crumb 1979, pp. 21-24.
  9. Schreiner 1994, p. 56.
  10. Crumb 1988, pp. 34-35.
  11. Worden 2021.

Bibliography