Robert Crumb once reflected on his career and said "You must thank the gods for art, those of us who have been fortunate enough to stumble onto this means of venting our craziness, our meanness, our towering disgust." The gods of art have smiled upon Robert Crumb often and blessed one of the most creative artists in the underground comix movement. Robert first gain popularity during the late 1960s as the creator of Zap Comix with such characters as Fritz the Cat, Angelfood McSpade, and Mr. Natural. His experimentation with LSD had a profound impact on his characters, including The Snoid, Shuman the Human, and the Truckin' guys.

Robert's art began to attract more mainstream notice when his cover art for Big Brother and the Holding Company's Cheap Thrills album which featured several drawings of Janis Joplin. But soon there were growing criticisms of obscenity for his overly sexualized Amazonian women with often exaggerated bumps and curves which were  explorations of  his own sexual fantasies One comic cover featured the tagline "What do those hippy chicks do when they do their thing?"  Criticism also came from the African-American community, such as from African American cartoonist and author Charles Johnson, that Crumb's comics are inherently racist because of their racially stereotyped portrayals of minorities.

Robert began drawing comics with his older brother Charles at an early age and eventually found a job as a greeting card artist . He went on to  designing trading cards for Topps Gum. He eventually  moved to San Francisco when he got his big break when he created his first comic book whole comic book Zap. The rest, as they say, is comix history. Today his original drawings are sought after by major galleries  where they sell for increasing high prices. There are several published collections of his drawings including a collectors item published by Taschen in 1997 titled R. Crumb's Sex Obsessions a 258 page encyclopedic trip through his sexual psyche.

Robert's most famous creation,  Fritz the Cat, was turned into a 1972 X-rated film of the same name by animator Ralph Bakshi. Robert hated the film and complained that "They put words in Fritz's mouth I never would've had him say. It was not my movie. I had nothing to do with it. They just used a couple of my stories. But a lot of people seem to think I was involved - that bothers me". So Robert committed pussycide by  having Fritz murdered by old girlfriend in his final comic book appearance.

So how to celebrate Robert's birthday? The choice of a film is easy- the documentary Crumb (1994)  produced by director David Lynch .If you don't feel like cooking tonight, then order from Amazon.com a tin of Devil Girl Hot Kisses,  tart heart-shaped cinnamon candy that comes in a  round tin designed by Robert with his hand-lettered slogan, "Have Yourself a Sweet 'n' Hot Little Suck!." Or you could make a classic Crumb Cake to honor this classic cartoonist.