When it comes to animation, Ralph Bakshi has always been a favorite of mine. He appeared at the Meltdown Gallery in Los Angeles this past Saturday for an exhibition. Earlier this year, Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi was published, which chronicles the career of this animation pioneer.

But this is also why I love this guy, below is an excerpt of a great interview he did over at BlackBook a couple months back. (Click the link to see the whole interview, where he pulls no punches when it comes to race relations, Al Sharpton, Disney, and more…)

This is his brief take on Robert Crumb and the whole Fritz the Cat fued.
-CrookOne-

“BB: Have you since spoken to Robert Crumb? There was a time when you were friendly, no?

RB: I’ve spoken to him a couple of times. He goes in so many directions that he’s hard to pin down. I spoke to him on the phone. We both had the same deal, five percent. They finally sent Crumb the money and not me. Crumb always gets what he wants, including that château of his in France.

BB: You once referred to him as being “slick,” but, to the general public, he seems anything but.

RB: That’s his thing! Crumb did a movie on himself called The Confessions of Robert Crumb, in which he yelled at me for doing Fritz the Cat. When he needed to become famous, he let someone take a camera into his house, while his mother was out of her mind, and he put all of that on film. His brother [Charles] killed himself shortly after that movie. What kind of guy is that? He has a château in France where he drinks wine every day, and is supposed to be in the underground. No one succeeds to the extent that Robert Crumb has without being slick. But to him, I’m just the guy that ruined Fritz the Cat. So, do I like Robert Crumb? No. I think he’s a hustler. I know he’s a hustler. I have no respect for Crumb. Is he a good artist? Yes, if you want to do the same thing over and over. He should have been my best friend for what I did with Fritz the Cat. I drew a good picture, and we both made out fine, and I’ll shut up because I was hoping you’d ask me about him. Why do I get this angry? I was thumbing through a book he put out just a few months ago, and of course, he’s yelling at me again, saying he feels sorry for me, saying that I’m the worst artist he’s ever met, saying that I ruined his cat.”

Bakshi Exhibit opening, Meltdown Comics, Hollywood, CA, US from Michelle Klein-Hass on Vimeo.