The Book of Mr. Natural
By R. Crumb
Fantagraphics Books, $19.99, 126 pages
Fred Natural, a former taxi driver in Afghanistan during World War II, Himalayan wanderer, later retreating to Death Valley in 1955 to “start anew,” came to “Sham” Francisco as “Mr. Natural” during the 1967 Summer of Love looking for nubile girls, and secondly, to bring the hapless hippies wise koans such as “the whole universe is completely insane.” The Book of Mr. Natural by the legendary and infamous and now filthy rich (the original cover art for Mr. Natural #1 just sold for over $100,000) R. Crumb is a gorgeous mini-coffee table comic book published by Fantagraphic Books. Crumb says Mr. Natural was born after taking some “fuzzy acid” and that he lived a bizarre hallucination-filled life for weeks as he first doodled the future religious leader. Starting with Mr. Natural’s introduction in 1967 and through the sixties and early seventies, and returning in the late eighties (after languishing in a mental institution for many years), Crumb has given our still needy time the archetype of the charlatan guru – the serene but eternally horny philosopher, bearded, in a robe, dispensing wisdom to the clueless Flakey Foont (his chief disciple) in all of us. Yes, there’s always a market for enlightenment. This book is for Mr. Natural’s legions of cult followers, 60’s believers, as well as new and younger readers who can hack the raunchy non-PC wisdom the guru ejaculates.
Reviewed by Phil Semler
