Robert Crumb was born in Philadelphia in 1943. He started cartooning as a boy and self-published, with his two brothers, issues of a comic book called Foo. It was not a success. Crumb grew interested in jazz and blues at around the same time he lost interest in Catholicism and God. But the teen remained committed to cartoons and comics. When he started dropping acid, he said, “That changed my head around. It made me stop taking cartooning so seriously and showed me a whole other side of myself.” The result was a subversive command of the cartoon scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Crumb’s work—characterized by self-deprecating humor, absurdity, and graphic sexual content—was a countercultural response to the growing political disillusionment of the time. You may remember such well-known Crumb characters as Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural. These comics and more arrive in London to showcase Crumb’s 60-year career. —Maggie Turner