Pops Read a Book: CRUMB: A CARTOONIST'S LIFE

I finished CRUMB: A CARTOONIST’S LIFE (Scribner, 2025), Dan Nadel’s intensive (and intense) biography of arguably the most iconic underground cartoonist of all time, and one of the most polarizing, complicated figures in not just comics, but culture. I’ve always had a tangential relationship with Crumb, recognizing his genius, but often put off by the ugliness that his work at times displays (there’s also beauty, for sure). CRUMB (even more than Terry Zwigoff’s 1995 documentary) spends an awful lot of time trying to parse the artist’s misogynistic and racist works as sociological studies of human nature, and I’m sure that’s true to some extent. But as this book often lays bare, Crumb is also frequently just a raging id, both on the page and in real life, and I’ve never been comfortable with people who justify selfish, harmful behavior as artistic expression (being when separating the artist from the art is as impossible as removing their flesh). Then again, my relationship with much of the most important work of the 1960s is cultural appreciation more than subjective enjoyment. 

CRUMB is riveting (although the extended family becomes a bit tough to keep track of, making me wish for a family tree for reference), alternately enlightening, aggravating, inspiring, and heartbreaking. But I didn’t come out of it with a burning desire to add more of the man’s work to my library. I’m good with what I have already (a few collections, some anthologies of underground work, and oh yeah, every issue of WEIRDO), as well as the arm’s length at which I keep it. 

Pops Watched TV: DTF ST. LOUIS

 For the past month or so, I’ve been proselytizing HBO’s DTF ST. LOUIS to friends, praising it as being something truly unique in an ocean of streaming television: A pitch black comedy / murder whodunit about sex in the suburbs, middle age ennui, and identity crises that was simultaneously twisted and unexpectedly sweet. Jason Bateman, David Harbour, and Linda Cardellini play friends caught in a complicated three-way affair that ends in the death of Harbour’s character, Floyd Smernitch. Two detectives, a grizzled older white man played by Richard Jenkins and a young African American woman (Joy Sunday) investigating the case focus on Floyd’s wife, Carol (Cardellini) and best friend, local meteorologist Clark (Bateman), and what initially seems like a typical tale of suburban infidelity leading to murder (for reasons financial or jealousy?) unravels as the details of the three lives are slowly laid bare (literally). 

Harbour is particularly moving as Floyd, a tortured, gentle soul desperately trying to find human connection. His relationship with his stepson, Richard (Arlan Ruf) will rend your heart in all of the ways it can be rended. Bateman evokes middle age weariness in a way that will make anyone who grew up watching him on TV feel every ache and pain they’ve ever endured. Cardellini’s Carol often comes across as cold (particularly towards the climax), making her rare moments of warmth and love have real resonance. The performances are all great, and often startling in their honesty. Which makes the ending (it’s not a spoiler, it’s the setup of the show) all the more painful. 

But not the good kind of dramatic painful. As the show’s final moments played out, I was left asking, What’s the Point? DTF ST. LOUIS goes to great, at time excruciating lengths to show us the complexity in these three characters (Clark’s wife, Eimy is barely in the series, presumably for a reason, although I can’t help but think having her more fleshed out would’ve helped us understand Clark’s situation more), but in the end, all we get is sadness. There’s no catharsis for anyone, no greater understanding of why life is so fucking hard, no silver lining woven into the tragedy. Everyone is just suffering (unless you count the detectives, who grow closer as a result of the investigation). 

Anyone who was frustrated by the conclusion of OZARK will feel familiar pangs of longing for a more just ending with DTF ST. LOUIS, but, as with Bateman’s crime drama, there’s more than enough good here to make it worth watching. But goddamn, it’s not an easy watch.