Cartoonist R. Crumb’s new work has a message: ‘Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’

The cartoonist R. Crumb has captivated, titillated and agitated audiences since the 1960s, first as the creator of Zap Comix, which included counterculture strips like “Fritz the Cat” and “Keep on Truckin’,” then during his rise through the small press “underground comix” movement of the '60s to become a pioneer of counterculture comic book art.

His work through the years has been criticized as misogynistic and racist, while simultaneously being celebrated in museums like the Hammer and the Whitney for their biting satire.

While the now-82-year-old Crumb was first established as an icon of the American left, born of the hippie movement that celebrated a mistrust in “the establishment,” his ongoing and deep relationship to societal paranoia has pushed him to a contemporary liberal fringe. Crumb mistrusts public figures across the political spectrum from Donald Trump to Anthony Fauci.

It's a fear of an ever-present “Deep State” that continues to drive Crumb’s work as he illustrates his modern-day anxieties, dives into updated conspiracy theories and pauses periodically to question if maybe he’s really just crazy?

In “Tales of Paranoia,” Crumb’s first publication of new work in 23 years, out this November, he includes a chart of powerful people he fears, ranging from J.D. Vance to Kim Kardashian, though Crumb doesn't list them by name, cheekily out of fear of their reprisal.

R. Crumb, "Cover: Tales of Paranoia," 2025

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Courtesy the artist, Paul Morris, and David Zwirner

)

“The thing about paranoia is it means that it's not based on a full knowledge of what's going on. It's based on the fact that you don't know what's going on. So, you’re trying to find out, and in the process, your mind can go to all kinds of crazy places,” Crumb told LAist.

Panels from “Tales of Paranoia” can be seen in an exhibition at David Zwirner’s L.A. gallery through Dec. 20. The show displays Crumb’s first in-depth solo comic work in more than 20 years and is his first showing in Los Angeles since 2009.

The show also includes panels from a collaborative, autobiographical comic done with Crumb’s late wife and longtime artistic partner Aline Kominsky-Crumb and their daughter, artist Sophie Crumb, and a digitized version of his notebook that gallery-goers can flip through on an interactive screen.

Page from R. Crumb, "What is Paranoia?," 2025

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Courtesy the artist, Paul Morris, and David Zwirner

)

In his pursuit of answers, Crumb is as equally voracious for knowledge and perspectives as he is dubious of those with power.

“I constantly try and sort out my feelings about human nature,” he said. “I mean, in my daily life, people seem pretty nice and all that, but there's so much nasty stuff going on. There's so much deception and manipulation and exploitation, and then hypocrisy and people that are very clever at what's called perception management.”

Crumb’s personal sense of paranoia has informed his work for decades, but it took a long time to make it the main focus of a comic.

“It took me 20 years of kind of festering about all this stuff until I was able to actually discuss it in a book,” Crumb said. “And I put it off for years and years because I knew I can't just do a comic that's just me, a talking head, page after page of me with half the panel as text. But that's what I ended up doing. I couldn't think of any cleverer way to do it. Just me mulling it over in public, you know, in print.”

Arguably the most literal depiction of Crumb’s constant consternation is a page depicting him awake in the night, staring into the darkness, eyes bulging in panic.

Page from R. Crumb, "I'm Afraid," 2025

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Courtesy the artist, Paul Morris, and David Zwirner

)

Crumb spends a lot of time ruminating in paranoia, but it’s a state of mind he also believes one must rein in. When his mind runs amok, Crumb said he does breathing exercises he learned from his daughter.

“When you're laying there in the night and you're having a panic attack, that's the only solution I know of,” he said. “That doesn't take away or change my mind, but it takes away the panic that's in your guts.”

Philosophically, Crumb is less interested in identifying a fundamental truth than he is focused on undoing fallacy.

“You want to come out on the other side of all the layers of falsehood and bulls--t and propaganda that we are constantly deluged with constantly. We're just swimming — we're up to our necks in it. So, getting past the falsehood, that's very liberating.”

You can see cartoonist R. Crumb’s latest work, "Tales of Paranoia," at David Zwirner in Los Angeles now through Dec. 20.