The Complete Crumb Vol. 11: Mr. Natural Committed to a Mental Institution!

From Booklist\nWith this volume, Fantagraphics reaches the midpoint in its project to reprint the entire body of work by R. (for Robert) Crumb, by far the most important and prolific of 1960s underground comics artists. The book collects strips from 1976^-77, when Crumb's bitterness and misogyny were no longer offset by the hippie ethos. This is not Crumb's most engaging work--that is found in earlier series installments--but it does indicate the directions his later career would take in its halfhearted stories featuring earlier characters and others that paved the way for the predominant alternative comics genre of the nineties, the warts-and-all autobiographical tale. Notably portentous among the latter are two brief stories drawn by Crumb but written by Harvey Pekar, whose own autobiographical approach was to be even more influential than Crumb's. With Crumb the subject of a new, critically acclaimed documentary film, libraries might do well to have this volume and its predecessors on hand for patrons who want to sample Crumb's work after seeing the movie. Gordon Flagg