Crumb, directed by Terry Zwigoff, produced by David Lynch and Lynn Odonnell, centers on R. Crumb, the highly influential and controversial cartoonist of the 1960s Beat Era. It's probably one of the best, if not the best, documentaries ever made. This film delivers an uplifting and encouraging message about taking control of your life, no matter how incredibly messed up you may be. He does a great job of portraying R. Crumb as something of a “diamond in the rough,” comparing him to much more dysfunctional brothers and mother and stories of his threatening, overbearing father. Even though Crumb himself is a very strange man, his brothers were obviously tremendously more affected by his father's abuse than he was. Crumb uses some interesting strategies to dodge his mental condition and at least appear a little more normal than the rest of his family. All three brothers are extremely artistic, but it seems that Robert has been better at using his art to release the negative emotions that live in his mind. Both Max and Steven had problems that eventually resolved them in their later lives, but Robert, somehow, managed to better manage his negativity and through his art transformed his problems into his modest prosperity. In the scene where Max talks to Robert about his years as a sex criminal, he still seems to be consumed by these incredibly unnatural feelings. He talks openly and almost cheerfully about chasing a girl around a pharmacy to take off her pants and look at her butt. These feelings and actions are ones that Robert would write cartoons about, rather than actually acting them out in public. This is a way for Robert to remain almost normal in society without becoming a sex criminal... middle of paper... the Crumb cartoons I've seen involving black people are illustrated as a satire of a satire, all of his Black characters resemble early 1900s cartoons like "Little Black Sambo," but give the sense that that kind of view of things is an unhealthy way of thinking. Everyone deals with this kind of negativity at one time or another, and Crumb's work is his way of staying away from the kind of darkness that has overtaken his family. Crumb was empowered by the fact that Robert was the only one in his family to, “Do it.” He did his own thing on his own terms and ultimately became a better person for it. Better than the rest of his family he is still incredibly flawed, but at least he was celebrated for his eccentricities and not vilified. Watching Crumb and his brothers also made me feel normal, which was also empowering.