GAYLETTER

Now — this news is not particularly recent, but I felt it was an interesting enough topic to bring up considering the issue many gays had with the recent Bert and Ernie New Yorker cover. Also I doubt this story reached any major news providers so maybe you haven’t heard about it. Legendary comic book artist, Robert Crumb, proposed a cover for The New Yorker, which was rejected for reasons unknown to us and to Crumb himself.

For those of you who don’t know — R. Crumb is a twisted, psychotic, neurotic, obsessive, irrational, anti-social, old-time music loving freak who, in my opinion, is always right when it comes to commenting on modern society. I have been a major R. Crumb fan for a while now and it still hurts when I see this cover that could’ve made major waves of awkward interpretations regarding gay marriage in New York.

This drawing is greatly ambiguous, everything from the gender of the couple to the expression on the clerks face. Is the cigarette butt on the floor meant to represent filth or carelessness? The sign that reads “Gender Inspection” is too absurdly funny and at the same time severely disheartening. Everyone knows that R. Crumb has a twisted sense of humor while maintaining sharp social criticism, but it’s often difficult to understand exactly what he’s communicating (except for when he illustrates his sexual fantasies of getting piggy back rides from Amazonian bodied women, that’s always pretty clear). Apparently this cover design is too “out there” for The New Yorker. I suppose you could argue that it was rejected simply because it wasn’t the best but I highly doubt that any publication would turn down contribution from R. Crumb unless there was some fear involved.

Should I be offended or should I be applauding?

On an end note — I highly recommend Terry Zwigoff’s brilliant documentary on Robert Crumb called ‘Crumb.’ Which can be seen here.