Talking about LSD and its impact on the counter-culture, Crumb said: “LSD was the road to Damascus for the hippies. After living in Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Detroit, all these really depressing industrial cities, San Francisco seemed like a sweet little cupcake with Victorian houses and pretty parks.” The town offered him the best environment to indulge in the things that most interested him: drawing wild comics and taking acid. Upon his arrival in San Francisco, Crumb quickly found his way to Haight Ashbury and the Psychedelic Shop and immersed himself in the carefree culture of the town: “San Francisco was a great town at the time, a really beautiful city. Snoid and last but not least, Snoid’s favorite companion Angelfood McSpade, the insatiable African black woman who took stereotyping to new levels. Other characters started their life during that period and bloomed after his move to the Hippie capital. There was that golden moment.”ĭuring these two years he published the character of Fritz the Cat, the most outrageous feline in history, in various magazines including Help! and Cavalier. People who had seen through the whole thing in some way that most people didn’t You’d look in their eyesĪnd you knew and they knew you had. Immediately knew who they were, you knew each other. If there was another person on that subway who has also taken LSD, you You got in a subway and you were a person that took LSD. Then and an eye opener for many, as he remembers: “At that moment, 1965-1966, LSD and travelling between New York, Chicago, and Detroit. The previous two years were spent soaking in The story of this album cover starts in January of 1967, This is the story of Robert Crumb’s cover art for Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company’s career-changing album Cheap Thrills. The result: one of the most iconic album covers to come out of the late 1960s. And to top it, the art selected for the front cover was the one he intended for the back cover. 9 Cheap Thrills, an album cover by Robert CrumbĪ curious tale this, about an artist who draws an album cover for a band he does not care for, playing a music style he does not listen to, appealing to an audience he does not connect with.

R crumb janis joplin