Fritz the Cat
Encyclopedia
Fritz the Cat is a comic strip
created by Robert Crumb
. Set in a "supercity" of anthropomorphic
animals, the strip focuses on Fritz, a feline con artist who frequently goes on wild adventures that sometimes involve sexcapades. Crumb began drawing this character in homemade comic books when he was a child. Fritz became his most famous character.
The strip appeared in Help!
and Cavalier
magazines. It subsequently gained prominence in publications associated with the underground comix
scene between 1965 and 1972. Fritz the Cat comic compilations elevated the strip into one of the most iconic features of the underground scene.
The strip received further attention when it was adapted into a 1972 animated film
with the same name. The directorial debut of animator Ralph Bakshi
, it became a worldwide success. It was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating
in the United States and the most successful independent animated feature to date.
Crumb ended the strip in 1972 due to disagreements with the filmmakers. He published a story in which Fritz was murdered by an ex-girlfriend. A second animated film, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat
, was produced in 1974 without the involvement of either Bakshi or Crumb.
in a homemade comic book story called "Cat Life", based on his experiences of Fred, the family cat. The character's next appearance was in a 1960 story titled "Robin Hood". By this point, the cat had become anthropomorphic and been renamed Fritz, a name derived from a minor unrelated character who appeared briefly in "Cat Life". Fritz appeared in the early 1960s Animal Town strips drawn by Charles
and Robert Crumb. Sometimes Fritz was accompanied by Fuzzy the Bunny, who served as an alter ego for Charles, his creator.
Fritz the Cat is set in a "modern 'supercity' of millions of animals." Stories begin simply and become increasingly chaotic and complex as the narrative responds to uncontrollable forces. The look of Fritz the Cat comics was characterized by the use of the Rapidiograph
technical pen
and a simple drawing style Robert Crumb used to facilitate his story telling. Crumb states that much of the comic books he enjoyed as a child were funny animal
comics, particularly those of Carl Barks
. Crumb was later influenced by Walt Kelly
's daily anthropomorphic funny animal comic strip Pogo; Crumb did not copy Kelly's comics directly, but states that he imitated his drawing style closely; Crumb admired Kelly's storytelling style, which "seemed [to be] plotless and casually done. The characters talked to each other and nothing much happened. Just a lot of foolishness takes place". Robert Crumb stated of his anthropomorphic work:
In 1964, when he was not working at American Greetings
, Crumb drew many Fritz the Cat strips for his own amusement. Some of these strips would later be published in Help!
and Cavalier
magazines and in the underground comix
. Fritz also appears briefly in Crumb's graphic novel
Big Yum Yum Book: The Story of Oggie and the Beanstalk, drawn in 1964, but not published until 1975. Several characters from the anthropomorphic universe of Fritz the Cat appeared in another Crumb comic strip, The Silly Pigeons, drawn in 1965 and intended for Help! In 1970, Crumb redrew an early Fuzzy the Bunny story written by Charles Crumb in 1952; it was published in Zap Comix
#5.
, lacking both morals and ethics. Thomas Albright describes Fritz as "a kind of updated Felix
with overtones of Charlie Chaplin
, Candide
, and Don Quixote." Fritz had a "glib, smooth and self-assured" personality, characteristics Crumb felt he was lacking in. According to Pahls, "To a great extent, Fritz was his wish-fulfillment... [the character allowed Robert to] do great deeds, have wild adventures, and undergo a variety of sex experiences, which he himself felt he couldn't. Fritz was bold, poised, had a way with the ladies—all attributes which Robert coveted, but felt he lacked."
Crumb denied any personal attachment to the character, stating, "I just got into drawing him... He was fun to draw." As Crumb's personal life changed, Fritz would too. According to Pahls, "For years, [Crumb] had few friends and no sex life; he was forced to spend many hours at school or on the job, and when he came home he 'escaped' by drawing home-made comics. When he suddenly found a group of friends that would accept him for himself, as he did in Cleveland in 1964, the 'compensation' factor went out of his drawing, and this was pretty much the end of Fritz's impetus."
An early untitled 10-page story, drawn in 1964 and released in 1969 as part of R. Crumb's Comics and Stories, depicts Fritz as a beatnik caricature who has an incest
uous tryst with his sister. In "Fred, the Teen-Age Girl Pigeon," Fritz is portrayed as a pop music
star. The strips "Fritz the Cat" and "Fritz Bugs Out" portray him as a hip poet and college dropout in the hippie
scene. "Fritz Bugs Out" uses anthropomorphic characters to comment on race relations, with crow
s representing African Americans. Fritz is portrayed as a self-conscious hypocrite, obsessed with his racism and associated guilt, while crows are portrayed as "hip innocents". "Fritz the Cat, Secret Agent for the C.I.A.," inspired by the popularity of the James Bond
series, portrays Fritz as a member of the Central Intelligence Agency
. "Fritz the No-Good" depicts Fritz becoming involved with terrorist
revolutionaries
; he also abuses
and rape
s one of the group member's girlfriends.
Fritz has an on-again/off-again relationship with a female fox named Winston, they break up at the beginning of "Fritz Bugs Out". Later in the story, she attempts to convince him not to "bug out", but eventually agrees to go on a road trip with him. When her car runs out of gas in the desert, Fritz abandons her. She reappears in "Fritz the Cat Doubts His Masculinity" and in "Fritz the No-Good", where the two reunite after Fritz is thrown out of his wife's apartment. Fuzzy the Bunny, who appeared in the early Animal Town strips, reappears as a college student in "Fritz Bugs Out" and as a revolutionary in "Fritz the No-Good".
, a magazine published by former Mad
editor Harvey Kurtzman
, published two stories featuring Fritz, including the character's first public appearance in January 1965, "Fritz Comes on Strong". In this debut story, Fritz brings a young female cat home and strips all her clothes off before getting on top of her to pick fleas off of her. Preceding the publication of the story, Kurtzman sent Crumb a letter which read, "Dear R. Crumb, we think the little pussycat drawings you sent us were just great. Question is, how do we print them without going to jail?"
Although Kurtzman agreed to publish the story, he requested that Crumb alter the final two panels; the published version depicted Fritz standing next to her. Crumb later recalled that the original ending "wasn't that dirty... only slightly risque by today's standards". In May 1965, Help! published a second Fritz story, "Fred, the Teen-Age Girl Pigeon". In this episode Fritz is a guitar-playing pop idol and he brings Fred, a female pigeon groupie, to his hotel room and proceeds to eat her. John Canaday
's New York
magazine review of Head Comix describes this punch line
as "outrageous brilliance [that] is rivaled only by Evelyn Waugh
's last lines in The Loved One
."
"Fritz Bugs Out" was serialized
in Cavalier
from February to October 1968. In the summer of 1968, Fritz the Cat strips appeared in the Viking Press
compilation titled Head Comix, which focused exclusively on Crumb's material. In 1969, Ballantine Books
paid Crumb a $5,000 advance for the publication rights to a compilation of three stories featuring Fritz. Crumb used the money to purchase a three-acre lot. Crumb abandoned the character that year, but previously unpublished stories appeared in Promethean #3 & 4 in 1971 and Artistic in 1973. "Fritz the Cat 'Superstar'" was the last new story released; it was published in The People's Comics in 1972.
In 1978, Bélier Press published The Complete Fritz the Cat, which brought together all the published stories featuring Fritz, as well as previously unpublished drawings and unfinished comics. At the artists request, a 10-page story drawn in 1964 and previously published in R. Crumb's Comics and Stories in 1969 was excluded from this collection. In April 1993, Fantagraphics Books
published The Life & Death of Fritz the Cat, compiling nine major strips, including the 1964 story previously excluded from The Complete Fritz the Cat. Fritz the Cat strips also appear in The Complete Crumb Comics series. An unpublished page featuring Fritz that had been intended for Help!, as well as comics featuring other characters related to the anthropomorphic universe of Fritz the Cat, appeared in The R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book in 1998.
, Fritz the Cat
1972, directed by Ralph Bakshi
, and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat
1974, directed by Robert Taylor. According to Dez Skinn, author of Comix: The Underground Revolution, the strip served as an inspiration for Omaha the Cat Dancer
. In Graphic Novels: A Bibliographic Guide to Book-Length Comics, D. Aviva Rothschild criticized the stories printed in the collection The Life & Death of Fritz the Cat as being misogynist, racist, and violent. He felt that, "They also tend to ramble, as if Crumb were making them up as he went along." Rothschild concluded that, "Even though Fritz the Cat is a classic, there are better, more coherent Crumb books around." The 1972 film adaptation of Fritz the Cat was ranked 51st on the Online Film Critics Society
's list of the top 100 greatest animated films of all time and 56th on Channel 4
's list of the 100 Greatest Cartoons.
In 1969, New York animator Ralph Bakshi came across a copy of R. Crumb's Fritz the Cat and suggested to producer Steve Krantz that it would work as a film. After meeting with Bakshi, Crumb loaned him one of his sketchbooks as a reference, but was unsure of the film's production and refused to sign the contract. Bakshi and Crumb were unable reach an agreement after two weeks of negotiations but Krantz secured the film rights from Crumb's wife, Dana, who had a power of attorney. Crumb received $50,000, distributed over the course of production and ten percent of Krantz's proceeds. Fritz the Cat was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating
from the Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA). The film's distributor capitalized on the rating in the film's advertising material, which touted the film as being "X rated and animated!" Released on April 12, 1972, it opened simultaneously in Hollywood and Washington, D.C.
The film went on to become a worldwide hit, grossing over $100 million (USD) and was the most successful independent animated feature ever. The film is credited with extending Crumb's reputation beyond the underground comix scene. Crumb disliked how the film presented the sexual content and politics. Following the film's release, The People's Comics published the story "Fritz the Cat 'Superstar'", in which Crumb satirized Bakshi and Krantz. Crumb portrayed Fritz in a script conference for a fictional sequel Fritz Goes to India. The strip ends with a neurotic ex-girlfriend killing Fritz. She stabs him in the back of the head with an ice pick due to Fritz's overt sexism. In 1974, Krantz produced the sequel The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat, without any participation from Bakshi or Crumb.
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
created by Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
. Set in a "supercity" of anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
animals, the strip focuses on Fritz, a feline con artist who frequently goes on wild adventures that sometimes involve sexcapades. Crumb began drawing this character in homemade comic books when he was a child. Fritz became his most famous character.
The strip appeared in Help!
Help! (magazine)
Help! was an American magazine published by James Warren. It wasHarvey Kurtzman's longest-running magazine project after leaving Mad and EC Publications, and during its five years of operation it was always chronically underfunded, yet innovative...
and Cavalier
Cavalier (magazine)
Cavalier is an American magazine that was launched by Fawcett Publications in 1952 and has continued for decades, eventually evolving into a Playboy-style men's magazine...
magazines. It subsequently gained prominence in publications associated with the underground comix
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
scene between 1965 and 1972. Fritz the Cat comic compilations elevated the strip into one of the most iconic features of the underground scene.
The strip received further attention when it was adapted into a 1972 animated film
Fritz the Cat (film)
Fritz the Cat is a 1972 American animated comedy film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi as his feature film debut. Based on the comic strip of the same name by Robert Crumb, the film was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States...
with the same name. The directorial debut of animator Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote...
, it became a worldwide success. It was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating
X-rated
In some countries, X is or has been a motion picture rating reserved for the most explicit films. Films rated X are intended only for viewing by adults, usually legally defined as people over the age of 17.-United Kingdom:...
in the United States and the most successful independent animated feature to date.
Crumb ended the strip in 1972 due to disagreements with the filmmakers. He published a story in which Fritz was murdered by an ex-girlfriend. A second animated film, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat
The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat
The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat is a 1974 animated film directed by Robert Taylor. It is an adult animation featuring a series of drug-induced vignettes both related and unrelated to life in the 1970s. Starring Skip Hinnant as the voice of the titular feline protagonist, the film is a sequel to...
, was produced in 1974 without the involvement of either Bakshi or Crumb.
Overview
Fritz the Cat was created in 1959 by Robert CrumbRobert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
in a homemade comic book story called "Cat Life", based on his experiences of Fred, the family cat. The character's next appearance was in a 1960 story titled "Robin Hood". By this point, the cat had become anthropomorphic and been renamed Fritz, a name derived from a minor unrelated character who appeared briefly in "Cat Life". Fritz appeared in the early 1960s Animal Town strips drawn by Charles
Charles Crumb
Charles Vincent Crumb, Jr. was an American artist closely associated with his famous younger brother, the cartoonist Robert Crumb....
and Robert Crumb. Sometimes Fritz was accompanied by Fuzzy the Bunny, who served as an alter ego for Charles, his creator.
Fritz the Cat is set in a "modern 'supercity' of millions of animals." Stories begin simply and become increasingly chaotic and complex as the narrative responds to uncontrollable forces. The look of Fritz the Cat comics was characterized by the use of the Rapidiograph
Rotring
Rotring is a German technical writing and drawing instruments company based in Hamburg.-History:The company was established in 1928 as Tintenkuli Handels GmbH. The company's first product was the Tintenkuli, a stylographic pen—a fountain pen with a narrow steel tube instead of a conventional nib...
technical pen
Technical pen
A technical pen is a specialized instrument used by an engineer, architect, or drafter to make lines of constant width for architectural, engineering, or technical drawings. It has been also generally called "rapidograph", although that particular name is officially a trademarked line of products...
and a simple drawing style Robert Crumb used to facilitate his story telling. Crumb states that much of the comic books he enjoyed as a child were funny animal
Funny animal
Funny animal is a cartooning term for the genre of comics and animated cartoons in which the main characters are humanoid or talking animals, with anthropomorphic personality traits. The characters themselves may also be called funny animals...
comics, particularly those of Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
. Crumb was later influenced by Walt Kelly
Walt Kelly
Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. , or Walt Kelly, was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip, Pogo. He began his animation career in 1936 at Walt Disney Studios, contributing to Pinocchio and Fantasia. Kelly resigned in 1941 at the age of 28 to work at Post-Hall Syndicate,...
's daily anthropomorphic funny animal comic strip Pogo; Crumb did not copy Kelly's comics directly, but states that he imitated his drawing style closely; Crumb admired Kelly's storytelling style, which "seemed [to be] plotless and casually done. The characters talked to each other and nothing much happened. Just a lot of foolishness takes place". Robert Crumb stated of his anthropomorphic work:
I can express something [with animals] that is different from what I put into my work about humans... I can put more nonsense, more satire and fantasy into the animals...they're also easier to do than people... With people I try more for realism, which is probably why I'm generally better with animals.
In 1964, when he was not working at American Greetings
American Greetings
American Greetings Corporation, Inc. is the world's largest publicly-traded greeting card company. It is based in Brooklyn, Ohio and sells paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products , and electronic expressive content...
, Crumb drew many Fritz the Cat strips for his own amusement. Some of these strips would later be published in Help!
Help! (magazine)
Help! was an American magazine published by James Warren. It wasHarvey Kurtzman's longest-running magazine project after leaving Mad and EC Publications, and during its five years of operation it was always chronically underfunded, yet innovative...
and Cavalier
Cavalier (magazine)
Cavalier is an American magazine that was launched by Fawcett Publications in 1952 and has continued for decades, eventually evolving into a Playboy-style men's magazine...
magazines and in the underground comix
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
. Fritz also appears briefly in Crumb's graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
Big Yum Yum Book: The Story of Oggie and the Beanstalk, drawn in 1964, but not published until 1975. Several characters from the anthropomorphic universe of Fritz the Cat appeared in another Crumb comic strip, The Silly Pigeons, drawn in 1965 and intended for Help! In 1970, Crumb redrew an early Fuzzy the Bunny story written by Charles Crumb in 1952; it was published in Zap Comix
Zap Comix
Zap Comix is the best-known and one of the most popular of the underground comics that emerged as part of the youth counterculture of the late 1960s. While not believed to be the first underground comic to have been published, Zap is considered to mark the beginning of the "underground comix"...
#5.
Characters
Marty Pahls, Crumb's childhood friend, describes Fritz as "a poseur", whose posturing was taken seriously by everyone around him. Fritz is self-centered and hedonisticHedonism
Hedonism is a school of thought which argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure .-Etymology:The name derives from the Greek word for "delight" ....
, lacking both morals and ethics. Thomas Albright describes Fritz as "a kind of updated Felix
Felix the Cat
Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in the silent film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combine to make Felix one of the most recognized cartoon characters in film history...
with overtones of Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, Candide
Candide
Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best ; Candide: or, The Optimist ; and Candide: or, Optimism...
, and Don Quixote." Fritz had a "glib, smooth and self-assured" personality, characteristics Crumb felt he was lacking in. According to Pahls, "To a great extent, Fritz was his wish-fulfillment... [the character allowed Robert to] do great deeds, have wild adventures, and undergo a variety of sex experiences, which he himself felt he couldn't. Fritz was bold, poised, had a way with the ladies—all attributes which Robert coveted, but felt he lacked."
Crumb denied any personal attachment to the character, stating, "I just got into drawing him... He was fun to draw." As Crumb's personal life changed, Fritz would too. According to Pahls, "For years, [Crumb] had few friends and no sex life; he was forced to spend many hours at school or on the job, and when he came home he 'escaped' by drawing home-made comics. When he suddenly found a group of friends that would accept him for himself, as he did in Cleveland in 1964, the 'compensation' factor went out of his drawing, and this was pretty much the end of Fritz's impetus."
An early untitled 10-page story, drawn in 1964 and released in 1969 as part of R. Crumb's Comics and Stories, depicts Fritz as a beatnik caricature who has an incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
uous tryst with his sister. In "Fred, the Teen-Age Girl Pigeon," Fritz is portrayed as a pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
star. The strips "Fritz the Cat" and "Fritz Bugs Out" portray him as a hip poet and college dropout in the hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
scene. "Fritz Bugs Out" uses anthropomorphic characters to comment on race relations, with crow
Crow
Crows form the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-size jackdaws to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on all temperate continents and several...
s representing African Americans. Fritz is portrayed as a self-conscious hypocrite, obsessed with his racism and associated guilt, while crows are portrayed as "hip innocents". "Fritz the Cat, Secret Agent for the C.I.A.," inspired by the popularity of the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
series, portrays Fritz as a member of the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
. "Fritz the No-Good" depicts Fritz becoming involved with terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
revolutionaries
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
; he also abuses
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
and rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
s one of the group member's girlfriends.
Fritz has an on-again/off-again relationship with a female fox named Winston, they break up at the beginning of "Fritz Bugs Out". Later in the story, she attempts to convince him not to "bug out", but eventually agrees to go on a road trip with him. When her car runs out of gas in the desert, Fritz abandons her. She reappears in "Fritz the Cat Doubts His Masculinity" and in "Fritz the No-Good", where the two reunite after Fritz is thrown out of his wife's apartment. Fuzzy the Bunny, who appeared in the early Animal Town strips, reappears as a college student in "Fritz Bugs Out" and as a revolutionary in "Fritz the No-Good".
Publication history
Help!Help! (magazine)
Help! was an American magazine published by James Warren. It wasHarvey Kurtzman's longest-running magazine project after leaving Mad and EC Publications, and during its five years of operation it was always chronically underfunded, yet innovative...
, a magazine published by former Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
editor Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic books and magazines. Kurtzman often signed his name H. Kurtz, followed by a stick figure Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924, Brooklyn, New York – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic...
, published two stories featuring Fritz, including the character's first public appearance in January 1965, "Fritz Comes on Strong". In this debut story, Fritz brings a young female cat home and strips all her clothes off before getting on top of her to pick fleas off of her. Preceding the publication of the story, Kurtzman sent Crumb a letter which read, "Dear R. Crumb, we think the little pussycat drawings you sent us were just great. Question is, how do we print them without going to jail?"
Although Kurtzman agreed to publish the story, he requested that Crumb alter the final two panels; the published version depicted Fritz standing next to her. Crumb later recalled that the original ending "wasn't that dirty... only slightly risque by today's standards". In May 1965, Help! published a second Fritz story, "Fred, the Teen-Age Girl Pigeon". In this episode Fritz is a guitar-playing pop idol and he brings Fred, a female pigeon groupie, to his hotel room and proceeds to eat her. John Canaday
John Canaday
John Edwin Canaday was a leading American art critic, author and art historian.-Early life:...
's New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
magazine review of Head Comix describes this punch line
Punch line
A punch line is the final part of a joke, comedy sketch, or profound statement, usually the word, sentence or exchange of sentences which is intended to be funny or to provoke laughter or thought from listeners...
as "outrageous brilliance [that] is rivaled only by Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
's last lines in The Loved One
The Loved One
The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy is a short satirical novel by British novelist Evelyn Waugh about the funeral business in Los Angeles, the British expatriate community in Hollywood, and the film industry.-Conception:...
."
"Fritz Bugs Out" was serialized
Serial (literature)
In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...
in Cavalier
Cavalier (magazine)
Cavalier is an American magazine that was launched by Fawcett Publications in 1952 and has continued for decades, eventually evolving into a Playboy-style men's magazine...
from February to October 1968. In the summer of 1968, Fritz the Cat strips appeared in the Viking Press
Viking Press
Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
compilation titled Head Comix, which focused exclusively on Crumb's material. In 1969, Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
paid Crumb a $5,000 advance for the publication rights to a compilation of three stories featuring Fritz. Crumb used the money to purchase a three-acre lot. Crumb abandoned the character that year, but previously unpublished stories appeared in Promethean #3 & 4 in 1971 and Artistic in 1973. "Fritz the Cat 'Superstar'" was the last new story released; it was published in The People's Comics in 1972.
In 1978, Bélier Press published The Complete Fritz the Cat, which brought together all the published stories featuring Fritz, as well as previously unpublished drawings and unfinished comics. At the artists request, a 10-page story drawn in 1964 and previously published in R. Crumb's Comics and Stories in 1969 was excluded from this collection. In April 1993, Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
published The Life & Death of Fritz the Cat, compiling nine major strips, including the 1964 story previously excluded from The Complete Fritz the Cat. Fritz the Cat strips also appear in The Complete Crumb Comics series. An unpublished page featuring Fritz that had been intended for Help!, as well as comics featuring other characters related to the anthropomorphic universe of Fritz the Cat, appeared in The R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book in 1998.
Cultural impact
Following the publication of the compilations Head Comix and R. Crumb's Fritz the Cat, Crumb received increased attention and Fritz the Cat became one of the most familiar features on the underground comix scene and Crumb's most famous creation. These stories served as the basis for a pair of film adaptations produced by Steve KrantzSteve Krantz
Stephen Falk Krantz was a film producer and writer who was most active from 1966 to 1996.- Career :Born in Brooklyn, New York, Steve Krantz graduated from Columbia University and went on to serve in the U.S. Army Air Forces in the Pacific during World War II as a second lieutenant.He worked as a...
, Fritz the Cat
Fritz the Cat (film)
Fritz the Cat is a 1972 American animated comedy film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi as his feature film debut. Based on the comic strip of the same name by Robert Crumb, the film was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States...
1972, directed by Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote...
, and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat
The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat
The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat is a 1974 animated film directed by Robert Taylor. It is an adult animation featuring a series of drug-induced vignettes both related and unrelated to life in the 1970s. Starring Skip Hinnant as the voice of the titular feline protagonist, the film is a sequel to...
1974, directed by Robert Taylor. According to Dez Skinn, author of Comix: The Underground Revolution, the strip served as an inspiration for Omaha the Cat Dancer
Omaha the Cat Dancer
"Omaha" the Cat Dancer is an erotic comic strip created by artist Reed Waller and writer Kate Worley. Set in the fictional Mipple City, Minnesota in a universe populated by anthropomorphic funny animal characters, the strip is a soap opera which focuses on Omaha, a feline exotic dancer, and her...
. In Graphic Novels: A Bibliographic Guide to Book-Length Comics, D. Aviva Rothschild criticized the stories printed in the collection The Life & Death of Fritz the Cat as being misogynist, racist, and violent. He felt that, "They also tend to ramble, as if Crumb were making them up as he went along." Rothschild concluded that, "Even though Fritz the Cat is a classic, there are better, more coherent Crumb books around." The 1972 film adaptation of Fritz the Cat was ranked 51st on the Online Film Critics Society
Online Film Critics Society
The Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...
's list of the top 100 greatest animated films of all time and 56th on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
's list of the 100 Greatest Cartoons.
Animated adaptations
X-rated
In some countries, X is or has been a motion picture rating reserved for the most explicit films. Films rated X are intended only for viewing by adults, usually legally defined as people over the age of 17.-United Kingdom:...
from the Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
(MPAA). The film's distributor capitalized on the rating in the film's advertising material, which touted the film as being "X rated and animated!" Released on April 12, 1972, it opened simultaneously in Hollywood and Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
The film went on to become a worldwide hit, grossing over $100 million (USD) and was the most successful independent animated feature ever. The film is credited with extending Crumb's reputation beyond the underground comix scene. Crumb disliked how the film presented the sexual content and politics. Following the film's release, The People's Comics published the story "Fritz the Cat 'Superstar'", in which Crumb satirized Bakshi and Krantz. Crumb portrayed Fritz in a script conference for a fictional sequel Fritz Goes to India. The strip ends with a neurotic ex-girlfriend killing Fritz. She stabs him in the back of the head with an ice pick due to Fritz's overt sexism. In 1974, Krantz produced the sequel The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat, without any participation from Bakshi or Crumb.
External links
- Fritz the Cat - Robert CrumbRobert CrumbRobert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
Official Website