'R. Crumb and George DiCaprio Talk Autoerotic Asphyxiation, Astral Projection, and Acid Trips' R. Crumb and George DiCaprio in conversation
2025
Life as an underground comic book artist in the 1970s was as freewheeling as you imagine—just ask Robert Crumb and George DiCaprio. The two men, now in their 80s, had the kind of meet-cute that only old-world New York could conjure: DiCaprio offered his illegally inhabited loft to Crumb’s crew.
The encounter was fortuitous. Crumb got DiCaprio the animation job that led him out West, where he ended up working as a comic book distributor and became the father of celebrated actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Meanwhile, Crumb emerged as one of the leading satirists of American culture. In November, he released Tales of Paranoia, his first solo comic in 23 years, published by Fantagraphics. Coinciding with an exhibition of new drawings and prints at David Zwirner in Los Angeles, on view through Jan. 10, the book explores personal and mass paranoia—particularly surrounding illness and disease.
To revisit the bad trip that inspired Crumb’s new book, the creative scene that formed them, and the future of their art form, the two friends connected with cartoonist Sammy Harkham—a member of a younger generation shaped by their work—for a sprawling Artists on Artists conversation. Conspiracy theory, autoerotic asphyxiation, escaping jail astrally—nothing was off the table.