John Martz

The R. Crumb Handbook

I picked up the brand-new R. Crumb Handbook which, as one reviewer put it, might as well be called the R. Crumb Bible since it’s about as thick and as full of content.  Plus, it comes with a CD: a compilation of Crumb’s various ragtime bands.  I didn’t plan on buying it, but the price was right (a mere 20 clams Canadian).  I’m glad it also comes with a Crumb bookmark because there’s no way I’m devouring this monster in one sitting. 

As an aside, when I went to Amazon to grab the image of the cover, I noticed that they redesigned their book listings.  Each listing now shows a larger-sized image of the book covers by default (in addition to hiding all the superfluous Amazon “departments” behind a wacky roll-over menu up top).  I like the change because try as they might, the Amazon shopping experience can’t quite capture the feeling of picking up a book with your own hands.  So at least the images are a bit bigger and I don’t have to squint and lean in to the monitor to read the titles.

Edit: Looks like I spoke too soon about Amazon.  They’re back to the small book images now.