People often ask us how Mineshaft began working with Robert Crumb. In 2000 Everett and I were living in Guilford, Vermont where we started publishing Mineshaft in January, 1999. We lived in a small shack that was 15 feet by 15 feet and had no running water or electricity. We did all of the computer work for the magazine at the library in Brattleboro where I worked. I rented a darkroom walking distance from the library in an old brick building near the Common Ground Cooperative Restaurant where Everett was working at the time. Sometimes in the evenings Everett would rent movies that he watched on a VCR and tv that were stored in the studio area of the darkroom while I developed film or printed black & white photos, or sometimes I would join him. One night he rented the movie CRUMB that we had wanted to see for a while. When the movie was originally released in 1995, Everett happened to see it listed in the paper at a movie theater in Eugene, Oregon, an hour's drive from where we lived at the time out in a small cottage in the woods near the Umpqua River. We weren't familiar with Crumb's work, but had heard good things about the movie. We drove to the theater one night soon after, only to find that CRUMB had been removed earlier than the date listed in the paper. After finally watching this excellent movie directed by Terry Zwigoff, Everett was inspired to write a letter to R. Crumb in which he included a copy of Mineshaft #4 which at the time was the most recent issue. A couple of months passed by when Everett and I were out making our almost daily walk to the mailbox. This was an enjoyable route on a rutted dirt road that passed by a beaver pond. We'd often see blue herons there. We shared the mailbox with a couple of other people and it was often over-stuffed with mail since Everett and I were the only ones that regularly picked up our mail. As Everett pulled out the mail, I could see he was excitedly holding an envelope with handwritten lettering that would become familiar and always a pleasure to see. Everett opened the envelope and looked inside to see a packet of sketchbook drawings and a letter from R. Crumb! We hurriedly walked back to our cabin where we poured over the wonderful treasure of drawings. Everett put together the front cover of Mineshaft #5 using the sketchbook drawing, "EWW Your Innards!", that Crumb had sent. At that point we didn't know any comics artists and were fairly isolated, so Everett thought that he would do the hand lettering himself. It was a great issue with six sketchbook drawings by Crumb and a special feature, "Freedom in the Death House: The Art of Tommy Trantino", by Everett. The cover offended the one bookshop in Brattleboro that had carried Mineshaft and now they wouldn't sell it, and a patron in Japan cancelled his order of 50 copies because of the front cover. One evening about a month after Mineshaft #5 had come out and Crumb had been sent his box of contributor copies, I was working in my darkroom. Everett knocked on the door and said he had a surprise for me. When I came out, he showed me two pages covered with Mineshaft logos that he recieved in the mail with a letter from Robert. Crumb wrote, "Was pleased to see my artwork reproduced in your little art-poetry mag, but I was offended to see my nicely crosshatched drawing on the cover underneath such a crappy no-where LOGO, so I've designed a few logos for you to use in the future if you want." We've been using Robert's fantastic logos ever since in the magazine, on our website, flyers, and other material.
Since that time, Robert Crumb has continued to send envelopes filled with his incredible artwork. He also includes fascinating letters that we began to publish in Mineshaft #10. Our admiration for Crumb inspired us to dig deeper into the amazing world of Ungerground Comix. We began to order numerous old comics from Don Donahue's shop, Apex Novelties. Everett contacted many of the underground artists and found them not only doing beautiful and creative new work, but also interested in collaborating with Mineshaft. Crumb also encouraged wonderful artists such as his wife, Aline Kominsky Crumb, and daughter, Sophie Crumb, to contribute to the magazine. In addition to this he introduced us via mail to artist Peter Poplaski and writer J.R. Helton. R. Crumb has not only been a contributor to Mineshaft but an inspiration and great promoter of the magazine that we truly appreciate.
To date Mineshaft has had the pleasure to publish nine front covers by R. Crumb: Mineshaft #5, #6, #7, #9, #10, #11, #13, #15, and #21; eight back covers: Mineshaft #7, #8, #12, #14, #16, #19, #20, and #22; and a total to date of 124 pages of artwork and letters appearing in every issue since Mineshaft #5.
March 28, ‘04
Everett:
Here’s some more sketchbook pages for MINESHAFT, plus the new $5.00 price tag you requested.
I see you got some stuff from my old buddy Robert Armstrong. Did you get his address from me??
I like the mix of text, cartoons, drawings & photos you’ve got going in MINESHAFT these days... Keeps things interesting for the “modern” reader. Like me, f’r instance, since nowadays almost everybody suffers from “A.D.D.” (Attention Deficit Disorder). But they don’t, we don’t, usually know that we’re suffering from it, since it is a condition of modern life, in which we can constantly distract ourselves with media of some kind or other, to the point where we’re all JADED and have the patience and focus of a seven-year-old child, a spoiled child at that.
I was quite surprised to see these drawings by Simon Deitch. They are quite fine. He has a strong vision, but, unlike his brother Kim, I think he has a hard time disciplining himself to turn out artwork. And I believe his health is not good, also. Last I heard, anyway.
I’ve never seen Thackeray’s illustrations before. That, too, was surprising, and the “Black Hole” fashion photo was very creepy and disturbing. Hope it doesn’t turn into the next youth trend. Yipes!
And in response to Peter Bagge’s letter, I would say, yes, Pete, there is something profoundly wrong with you that you “could care less what it all means.” But I think he does care, in his own way. He’s just basically archly conservative, though in a very brilliant, personal way. Of course his Divine Grace Swami Bhaktivedanta is a silly old pompous windbag, but he’s absolutely correct about the four defects of “a living being who lives in the mundane world,” meaning ALL of us, every one who lives in a physical body: we are certain to commit mistakes, we are subject to illusion, we have a propensity to cheat others, and our senses are imperfect. And you could add to this list a fifth defect: we desire to violate and dominate others; and a sixth defect, we choose to remain willfully ignorant; and a seventh defect, we think we’re hot shit, we think we know everything there is to know; and an eighth defect, and a ninth, and a tenth...
What bewilders me is how anyone could NOT be interested in “THE BIG QUESTIONS”... And I know some very intelligent people who aren’t, such as Peter Bagge. My wife Aline is kind of like that, too. She treats my “quest” for the meaning of life as something hopelessly sophomoric in my personality, a youthful naďveté that I never outgrew.
Maybe she’s right.
I often find myself marveling at Aline’s sharp, hard, pragmatic perceptions about life and people. With her it’s usually about personal interactions, human behavior, a Jewish, Freudian vision of the psyches of our friends and relatives. Scary sometimes.
Me, I’m always preoccupied with, you know, trying to open my third eye or some other nutty thing like that, rather oblivious to the motivations and maneuverings of the people around me. We make a pretty good team, though. Aline, with her sharp eye for human behavior, protects me. I might be DEAD by now if I hadn’t gotten attached to her.
In your letter of Oct., 2003 you mention getting a C.D. of Bennie Nawahi. I agree that he is great, in case I didn’t already tell you. And there is a lot of other great Hawaiian music recorded in the late 1920s-early’30s. Two record companies, Columbia and Brunswick, recorded in Honolulu in those days and gave us a legacy of many great string bands and singers who never left the islands.
By the way, how’s your prostate, old chap, old bean, ol’ sport? I’m still hale and hearty at 60, knock on wood, I try to exercise regularly these days, which is new for me. I was never very interested in my own body. All my attention was focused obsessively on the female body, especially big, robust ones. I get no joy from my work-outs, it’s just maintenance. But I can stand on my head for five minutes now. It’s not fun but I like the challenge, and I want to try to keep my body tough and resilient as long as I can. I was amazed to read Kim Deitch’s letter in MINESHAFT about him doing a hundred push-ups a day! A HUNDRED PUSH-UPS!! Try it sometime! I can do 20 and then I’m shot... Does he do them all at once, I wonder, or at intervals during the day??
The body feels like a hulking dead weight. I’m just a natural-born weakling, that’s all. I got almost no upper body strength. I got beat up by a girl in third grade. She broke my glasses. I was crying. Her and her girlfriends ridiculed me and she yelled, “Oh go on home to your Mommy!” And I did, actually. No wonder I have all these sadistic fantasies... And you know what? There are a lot of masochistic women out there... It’s a big well-known secret. And a lot of them are very strong ladies who are very forceful and powerful in the world. Life’s full of surprising ironies... Almost nothing is as it appears.
But let us not dwell too long on such matters... It makes people uncomfortable to drag such stuff out in the open.
Guess that’s all for now...
-R. Crumb (originally published in Mineshaft #14)
Coming soon- more letters by R. Crumb!