Robert Crumb & Dan Nadel with Matt Groening

Wed Apr 23 2025 at 08:00 pm to 09:15 pm UTC-07:00

Aratani Theatre | Los Angeles

Live Talks Los Angeles
Publisher/HostLive Talks Los Angeles
Robert Crumb & Dan Nadel with Matt Groening
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Robert Crumb & Dan Nadel in conversation with Matt Groening discussing, "Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life"
About this Event

Please note:
-- Tickets are non refundable and are not transferable.

-- Tickets cannot be re-sold on re-seller platforms. Re-sold ticket will not be honored.

-- All ticket holders should be ready to show ID at the event.

-- The name(s) you provide during registration will be on a will-call list at the event, where you will check-in and get your ticket to enter the theatre.

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Join us for an in-person and virtual* Live Talks Los Angeles event:


Wednesday, April 23, 2025, 8pm

*Virtual event airs on April 29 at 6pm PT/6pm ET



Robert Crumb & Dan Nadel
in conversation with Matt Groening

discussing, Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life


TICKETS:

  • $100--One Premium Orchestra Section ticket + 2 signed books
    (signed copy of Crumb's biography*; and a signed copy of Groening's book, The Art of Futurama)
  • $80--Two Orchestra Section tickets + 1 signed copy of the Crumb biography*
  • $60--One Orchestra Section ticket + 1 signed copy of the Crumb biography*
  • $30--One Balcony Ticket (book not included)
    *signed by Crumb and Nadel
  • Additional signed copies of the Crumb biography available for purchase at event.
  • Face masks recommended
  • The virtual version of this event airs on April 29, 2025, at 6pm PT/9PM ET and is available on video-on-demand for five days.
  • Tickets for the virtual event can be purchased here (includes the signed book)
  • ASL interpreter provided upon request.
  • Free parking at the venue

The first biography of Robert Crumb—one of the most profound and influential artists of the 20th century—whose iconic, radically frank and meticulously rendered cartoons and comics inspired generations of readers and cartoonists, from Art Spiegelman to Alison Bechdel.
Robert Crumb (b. 1943, Philadelphia) redefined comics as an art form in the 1960s and 70s with titles including Zap, Fritz the Cat, and Mr. Natural. In 1994 he was the subject of the widely hailed documentary, Crumb. Celebrated internationally for expanding the boundaries of the graphic arts, his books include The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb and Existential Comics. He lives in the south of France.
Dan Nadel is a writer and curator. His previous books include, It’s Life as a I See It: Black Cartoonists in Chicago, 1940–1980; Peter Saul: Professional Artist Correspondence, 1945–1976; and Art Out of Time: Unknown Comic Visionaries, 1900–1969. Nadel has curated exhibitions for galleries and museums internationally including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, UC Davis, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is the founder of PictureBox, a publishing and packaging company that produced over one hundred books, objects, and zines from 2000 to 2014, including the Grammy Award–winning design for Wilco’s 2004 album A Ghost Is Born. Dan is the curator-at-large for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
Matt Groening created the longest-running comedy in television history…The Simpsons. It exploded into a cultural phenomenon in 1990 and has remained one of the most groundbreaking and innovative entertainment franchises, recognizable throughout the world. He followed it with his creation of the hit sci-fi series FUTURAMA, currently one of the top rated shows on Comedy Central. As a cartoonist, Groening began his “Life in Hell” weekly comic strip series in the 1980’s which he concluded in 2012.
Robert Crumb is often credited with single-handedly transforming the comics medium into a place for adult expression, in the process pioneering the underground comic book industry, and transforming the vernacular language of 20th-century America into an instantly recognizable and popular aesthetic, as iconic as Walt Disney or Charles Schulz. Now, for the first time, Dan Nadel, a curator and writer specializing in comics and art, shares how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact.
More than just a biography of an iconic cartoonist, Crumb is the story of a richly complex life at the forefront of both the underground and popular cultures of post-war America. Including forty-five stunning black-and-white images throughout and a sixteen-page color insert featuring images both iconic and obscure, Crumb spans the pressures of 1950s suburban America and Crumb’s highly dysfunctional early family life; the history of comics and graphic satire; 20th century popular music; the world of the counterculture; the birth of underground comic books in 1960s San Francisco with Crumb’s Zap Comix; the economic challenges and dissolution of the hippie dream; and the path Robert Crumb blazed through it all.
Written with Crumb’s cooperation, this fascinating, rollicking book takes in seven decades of Crumb’s iconic works, including Fritz the Cat, Weirdo, and his final book-length comic of The Book of Genesis; capturing, in the process, the essence of an extraordinary artist and his times.


Event Photos
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Aratani Theatre, 244 San Pedro Street, Los Angeles, United States

Tickets

USD 34.03 to USD 111.12

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