Amazon.com: The Book of Mr. Natural (9781606993521): R. Crumb: Books

Amazon.com: The Book of Mr. Natural (9781606993521): R. Crumb: Books:

'via Blog this'

Mr Natural is a guru who does exactly what good gurus ought to do: he shakes us up by refusing to act like we think holy people should act. He has a roving eye for the ladies, he cusses, at times he appears heartless or indifferent, and the advice he offers--when he does offer it, which isn't all that often--frequently comes across as whacky. He's so irreverent that it's easy to see him as irrelevant. But nothing could be further from the truth, because Mr Natural is like one of those Taoist sages who, dressed in rags and laughing uproariously, serve as living reminders for the rest of us not to take ourselves, our lifestyles, and our values so seriously. Self-honesty is what Mr Natural wants from us.

As Flakey Foont discovers over and over in the Mr Natural comix, though, self-honesty is hard to come by, because self-deception feels so damn good, especially to us "booshwah" types. We deceive ourselves all the time about our seething sexual desires ("Mr Natural stops Talking," "The Girlfriend," and the marvelous Devil Girl stories). We deceive ourselves about our piety, pretending that what we want to believe is what we should believe ("Mr Natural Goes to a Meeting of the Minds," "Om Sweet Om," and "Sittin' Around the Kitchen Table"). We deceive ourselves about work and ambition ("It's a workaday World") and, in one of the best two stories in this volume, we deceive ourselves when we think about God ("Mr Natural Meets 'The Kid'").* In all these stories, sacred cow after sacred cow runs off into the sunset, mooing gaily.