Robert Crumb’s first iconic character — and still possibly his most — was Fritz the Cat: the horny, high, hipster feline whose wild adventures and sexual escapades captivated countercultural audiences from the mid-’60s until 1972, when Ralph Bakshi turned the strips into an X-rated animated film that Crumb hated so much, he famously killed off the character and never returned to him. The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat contains all the Fritz stories from the earliest sketchbook-drawn tales (“Hey, Ol’ Cat!” and “Fritz Comes On Strong”) to the wild adventure stories (“Special Agent for the C.I.A.”) to the classic “peak” Fritz stories (“Fritz the No-Good”) all the way to the despairing “Fritz the Cat, Superstar” with its infamous icepick ending. Plus an introduction by Crumb, sketchbook pages, and more in a new paperback edition.
