Crumb Comics Vol 8 Death of Fritz the Cat

This important addition to the ongoing project to publish the complete works of America's best-known ``underground'' cartoonist collects comics from the early 1970s. It includes classic Crumb characters like Flakey Foont, Mr. Natural, ProJunior, the Snoid and Angel McFood. Crumb's work is characterized by all-out sex, and his various obsessions are on graphic display. The women are solidly built, their shoes lovingly rendered and his designs on them outrageously explicit. In one cartoon, a suburban father on vacation gives up civilization after he's captured by a hairy female mountain monster. In another, Crumb's sexual fantasies dominate a dreamily eroticized, torpid afternoon. One of the best stories presents the notorious cat Fritz as a burned-out sleazeball exploiting his movie-star fame. Fed up with his insults, Andrea Ostrich stabs him in the back of the head with an ice pick, ending his sordid little cartoon life. Many of the pieces included here set the stage for the later, very funny autobiographical works influenced by his wife, cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb. (June)