The Life & Death of Fritz the Cat

by Robert Crumb

Comics that made Crumb famous against his will. First time in hardcover!



Robert Crumb's first great character. In fact, his second-best-known character next to Mr. Natural â was Fritz the Cat, the horny, hip-talking feline whose success (especially after the release of the animated movie, which Crumb loathed) caused Crumb to kill him off. The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat, back in print as an inexpensive hardcover as a companion to The Book of Mr. Natural, contains all the Fritz stories from the earliest sketchbook-drawn tales (â Hey, Olâ Cat!â and â Fritz Comes On Strongâ ) to the wild adventure stories (â Special Agent for the C.I.A.â ) to the classic â peakâ Fritz stories (â Fritz the No-Goodâ ) all the way to the despairing â Fritz the Cat, Superstarâ with its infamous ice-pick ending. Plus an introduction by Crumb, sketchbook pages, and more. 96 pages of black-and-white comics

Genres: Comics, Humor, Graphic Novels, Comix, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Comedy

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1993

About the author

Robert Dennis Crumb (born August 30, 1943)— 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 as its most prominent figure. Though one of the most celebrated of comic book artists, Crumb's entire career has unfolded outside the mainstream comic book publishing industry. One of his most recognized works is the "Keep on Truckin'" comic, which became a widely distributed fixture of pop culture in the 1970s. Others are the characters "Devil Girl", "Fritz the Cat", and "Mr. Natural".

He was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1991.

Reviews

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crumb at his sleazy best. He really didn't give a shit. Crumb made most edgy stand up comics, writers and musicians seem like politically correct charlatans. Crumb broke all the rules. What do you mean broke? He did not care about the rules. Middle class cat Fritz joins a revolutionary movement after getting thrown out of the house by his naggy wife. He gets away with it in the end. Getting laid is the reason to be. Fritz cat Bond type agent who is a total racist gets sent to China. It ends with Fritz cat offering the cleverest Chinese scientist guy a job at General Motors with a lecture about the work culture, lol. Crumb trusts his instincts about the wider world and does not bother to confirm to whatever is the media inspired zeitgeist. Anyway, he was just having fun with all of this. Crumb raised levels of artistic freedom to such a deadly extent that most new artists would prefer to cancel Crumb rather than try to emulate him.

[Melki · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure why Fritz is considered a classic. Poorly drawn and not funny, perhaps the 1972 Ralph Bakshi movie, the first animated film to earn an X rating, adds to the notoriety.

Fritz hangs out with his pals, smokes weed, and does a good job of sticking it to the man. And speaking of sticking it to...

He doesn't appear to be anatomically correct, yet he has no trouble making it with a huge variety of female critters, all of whom have lovely, curvy "lady" bodies - even the ostrich.

Fritz also has no qualms about rape or incest when it comes to his quest to mount all of the animal kingdom.

If the casual treatment of either of these subjects bothers you, stay FAR away from this book.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reread 8/2025. Quite a politically incorrect cultural artifact; I'm sure lots of people will not approve today. Oh yes, Fritz is irredeemable, and the satire cuts. That "Fritz in Peking" story, whoa! But Crumb can draw, and it's fun to see the art evolve from the rough early tales.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crumb hated Bakshi's movie, in part perhaps because it softened Fritz and made him a little less despicable and more sympathetic character. This book is not for squeamish or those who romanticize the revolution, as the comic book story arch was too Sado masochistic for a Traditional Hollywood film, even if it was an X rated cartoon. In what must be interpreted as career self immolation, Crumb kills Fritz in the end, and anti-climactically. It makes for a neat but abrupt conclusion to the universe created by Crumb, but perhaps this was a universe which could only exist in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and which could not survive in today's world of man-bun hipsters, intersectional SJWs, and folks who dig Christian Gray, but wonder why they can't meet anyone nice.

[Marc Weidenbaum]

So many years after its publication, Fritz the Cat can still shock. I re-read it after a very long gap -- long enough that I'm not quite sure when I last read it, easily a decade. There's more collected than just this volume, but it's a good start. There's kind of a dual shock to Fritz, partly the idea it could shock at all. It's a comic about a cat, in the literal and slang sense of the word, who does most of his thinking below his belt. The animated series Archer some 40 years later makes Fritz look like Archie by comparison -- most but not all of the time.

But shock it once did -- and, in the other half of this dual shock, occasionally still can: an incest scene in one of the earliest stories makes it clear, even this many decades on (it dates to the mid-1960s), why. Well, not exactly why. The boundaries Crumb was pushing at at the time, while well cataloged, are very different to consider as categories than to have experienced first hand, which I was certainly too young to have done when it was first being released.

Key among the pleasures of reading it today is watching how quickly, in a matter of mere years, Crumb went from rough line drawings to both the visual style and obsessive cues we associate him with to this day. The stories are often rambling, made up it seems as they go along, but that very sloppiness is another of its pleasures. While set on the idea that comics could be far more than they had been, aspiring to self-evidently "literary" value was not on Crumb's mind. Not yet.

Part of the reason I wanted to revisit Fritz the Cat was to see a quasi-documentary look at mid-60s proto-hipster life, the grungy reality of the lumpen slackers of the day. And this it provides in (to use an alternate definition of a word that in Fritz still shocks to see in print) spades.

[Andrew Shaffer]

The evolution of Crumb’s art over the course of these strips is wild.

[Alexa · Rating 3 out of 5]

So so so so so so so scummy. Still glad I read it finally though.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Robert Crumb has artistic talent to burn, but his writing is awful.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as part of Panels' 2015 Read Harder Challenge for the anthropomorphic animals category. Me...I'm not much a fan of the more realistic portrayals of anthropomorphism, but I welcomed the idea of getting to know R. Crumb's work better.

Artistically, I like Crumb, especially as his style got cleaner over the course. Content-wise, I'm not sure this is really for me, mostly because it often makes me uneasy. On one hand, reading Fritz the Cat feels like a rather authentic glimpse into the seedy side of the Sixties, but I'm not familiar enough with Crumb's work to know where he draws the line between social commentary/satire and earnestness. Perhaps that's the point? The whole crows-as-Black-people, rats-as-Chinese, the role of any woman, period (why hello, incest and rape). Fritz is funny mostly because his schtick is just so over-the-top. The parts I liked best were his womanizing in "Fritz Bugs Out" and the James Bond thing going on in "Special Agent for the CIA" (poop jokes also get me every time). I can appreciate the general story arcs from starting simply to devolving into utter madness by the end, but it became redundant to me after a while. I'm sure that worked better as read in its original, sporadic publications rather than in a graphic novel compilation.

So, ultimately, I'm glad I read some Fritz the Cat comics, but I might just stick to Mr. Natural.

[Cwn_annwn_13 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fritz the Cat was some of Crumbs most famous work but not his best. There is good satire/parody of the so called counterculture but most of it is Crumb projecting his self onto Fritz. Fritz fluctuates between whining and feeling sorry for himself because he's such a misunderstood artistic type but when he gets in situations where he has the upper hand he's a misanthropic jerk to everybody around him. Although it was universally hated, especially by Crumb himself, I actually liked the Fritz the Cat movie better than the comic.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

R. Crumb said that after he took acid, the idea of having a career seemed absurd to him.

[Brian Fagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read but limited. Start out with the Crumb collections from his work in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s before hitting the Fritz the Cat collection.

[BMK · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad. Some good funny comics, but maybe a bit too much rape and incest for my tastes.

[Julian Nolasco · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a call to action, for people to look around and see the hypocrisy in their everyday lives and their every day wishes. Taking place in the 1960's The life and death of Fritz the cat by Robert Crumb really satirizes the political climate that was taking place by creating a character that embodies the anti society belief which people of the 1960's thought they were. showing the people who thought they were woke just how really dumb they were. they weren't woke they were just adding to the problem.

=================================Spoilers Ahead================================

Fritz, the cat is supposed to be a character you hate and despise, showing just how disgusting, demented, and despicable humans could and would be had there been no society telling them what is acceptable. One story that highlights the meaning of the comics is the story "Fritz the cat in fritz bugs out" a story about how fritz has a desire to flee from responsibility and venture around the world to gather material for his poetry. In doing so he burns down a his college because he done trying to "out intellectual another intellectual", Fritz incites a mass riots between Crows that represent Black people in the Us, and Pigs that are police officers. and he also cuts off his connection with his loved ones to search for a new life and a new city only to return the second he reached a new city. Fritz is supposed to represent the hippies and rebellious people that wanted nothing to do with being a "slave to the Man"; and Crumb uses his character to show how that way of thinking leads to irrational actions and large consequence. while on the other side of the spectrum showing that leading heavily into the societal views restricts you of your freedom, with his illustrations of the college students being so caught up in their own work they fail to realize the campus is on fire until its right next to them. Crumb highlights that not standing up to police injustice leads to more brutality and racism. How staying with people and making having friends your priority won't allow you to develop as a person.

Why I really enjoy the Book and give it a five star rating is because it covers a various amount of topics that people feared to discuss, showed the two extremes and made you think about what path you are going to follow. Are you going to stay in the grasp of society and live your life based on others views about you? Are you going to "Bug out" and do the opposite of societal norms until your actions catch up with you? Or as I believe Crumb is trying to entice the readers to be. Are you going to realize that life is not about picking sides, but rather accepting both. Be a good citizen yet don't let that control you from finding your free love, or your next poem, perhaps your next social movement. Be a free person without being a harmful one. That is why Fritz the cat (while a difficult read) is still one of the best satirical pieces to date

[Aussiescribbler Aussiescribbler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a lot of people, I suppose, I first became aware of Robert Crumb’s character Fritz the Cat via the the 1972 movie directed by Ralph Bakshi, which had the distinction of being the first cartoon to receive an X-rating in the United States. That film was not a good experience for Crumb and inspired the final story in this compilation in which there is a guest appearance by a director named Ralph and in which our feline protagonist meets his demise.

Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary Crumb greatly increased my interest in the man himself. It’s one of the best documentary films I’ve ever seen. The roots of his neurosis and the way in which it finds expression in his art is laid bare for all to see.

Strangely it has taken me quite a while to get around to reading his comics. I thought I’d start with Fritz, since this character was an early creation and his most famous.

Fritz is an anti-hero if there ever was one - misogynist, scrounger, egotist. Incest, rape, arson, attempted terrorism, are just some of the activities he finds himself taking part in because he unquestioningly follows either his own impulses or the guidance of others.

In Fritz Bugs Out, he progresses through various forms of trendy rebellion - philandering, hanging out with crows (Crumb seems to borrow from Disney’s Dumbo in portraying black characters as crows, though if Crumb had been Disney he would have had the Three Little Pigs working for the police department as well), smoking pot, preaching socialist revolution, doing a Kerouac and hitting the road - all in the spirit of self-serving self-aggrandisement and all with disastrous results. These stories are often at their best when parodying countercultural self-indulgence and pretension.

Fritz the Cat, Special Agent for the C.I.A. stands out from the other stories. This isn’t part of the saga of Fritz’s progression from failing college student to jaded Hollywood star. Here we take a detour as Fritz becomes a James Bond-style super spy. The key elements of a Bond film are parodied as the arrogant, sexist secret agent has to foil a foreign plot against the United States. Crumb takes the subtext of xenophobia and exaggerates it to a demented extreme - the Communist Chinese are represented by hordes of rats who get their “r’s” and “l’s” mixed up, led by Captain Chin Ki Stin Ki.

From the misogyny to the racist stereotypes, I’m sure there is much in these stories that readers might object to, but Crumb’s approach, as I see it, is to pour all the dark and twisted contents of his imagination onto the page were it can work as a examination and critique of those aspect of the social world. If there is darkness in us, it won’t go away by being kept hidden.

[E.Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t imagine that the animated version of fritz the cat would be so much more tame than its source material, but here we are. From chapter 1 onwards this book is chock full of incredibly triggering material, which makes this hard to recommend or to rate more highly. I think it’s a very interesting work to think about, but i am certainly not itching for a re-read.

“fritz isn’t supposed to be likeable he’s a scumbag” no believe me, i got that part, i’ve read a few stories like that, they just usually aren’t so abhorrent that i pray for supporting cast members to bash the protagonists head in throughout the reading.

Fritz, the book and the character are interesting pieces of work. Crumbs animosity toward the free love movement and the culture that spawned it drips from the page. Fritz is a character so holistically self-centered and petulant that even the saintliest readers are given no opportunity to grow any affection for him.

And yet i am sympathetic, fritz never had any chance, maybe he lacked something in it from birth or maybe he was stripped of it in his youth, but this is a man pathologically incapable of empathy at the time we meet him.

For all the caterwauling about the supposed vapidity of free love and revolutionary movements, Fritz is the emptiest of all, the lonliest, an island he digs up himself.

Fritz isn’t devoid of emotion, he is simply out of touch with them, both those of others and his own. this impairs him in genuine human, or animal connection. The swathes of discord he cuts through the lives of others are the only thing he knows for sure. Each doling out of abuse a twisted cry for help.

In the end, Fritz has become lonely, he pushes away everyone who tries to help him, because he’s too calloused to recognize his own need. His only company a similar sort of scumbag, pushed to the edges half by society and half by their own sordid actions. In the end, all they have is vice, the imbibe, they reminisce, about all they got up to. In a way it has become baked into them by the years, their darkness, their shadow the only companion they’re afforded at the end, a mirror they can’t help but laugh at, because the alternative is despair in knowing.

You have to come at it from a certain angle to see it, but Fritz the cat is a fantastic case study in the cyclical nature of trauma, and how our society facilitates it both materially and ideologically.

I would rate this book, higher, i think it’s quite good, but the content within is a lot to bear. For this reason, i have to make more personal, utilitarian decision with my rating, because i think i need a minute before attempting anything else quite like Fritz.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, I'm a fanboy for R. Crumb, but this collection was still really wonderful. Fritz is a crude, swindling, rapacious, scuzzy, reprobate...and yet he was fun to read. This collection has elements that are unacceptable by today's standards, but they give us a glimpse into the creative landscape that Crumb was working from when he began and ultimately ended this series.

This collection of Fritz also offers a chance to see an artist developing. The early comics are rough, with the earliest signs of R. Crumbs now-legendary cross-hatching appearing in small bursts. By the end Crumb has found his confidence and style and the comics fall in line with the rest of his established aesthetic. The Life and Death of Fritz can be a lovely "leveling of the playing field" so to speak because this book allows younger and aspiring cartoonists to see that even the "masters" of the craft have to slowly develop their style and approach to stories.

Fritz was often a repulsive character, and I wasn't terribly sad or surprised when one of his lover's killed him in the final panels, but it was an expierience I'm not soon to forget.

[Ben Leach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is this a product of its era? Absolutely. Is it politically correct in 2024? Good lord, no.

But did it make me giggle? It sure did.

When I was young, I first learned about Fritz the Cat because of its distinction as the first x-rated cartoon, which I still haven't seen. As I've read more and more graphic novels, I've often heard of Robert Crumb spoken of in reverent tones as a source of inspiration for many underground comic artists. And I'm fascinated that R. Crumb got his start at American Greetings.

In one volume, you see Crumb's evolution as an artist and a storyteller, and it's fascinating to watch. The first couple of volumes feel very much like doodles that you might pass around at work to make each other giggle, but then the art and world-building eventually become more ambitious. Which is funny because Fritz has only one ambition, motivated entirely by primal instinct.

I'm 40 and I don't know if I'd recommend this to anyone younger than me, and yet I've read things like "Disgusting Creatures" by Simon Hanselmann, a very 21st century underground comic that reminded me very much of Fritz and his exploits. So maybe there is still a place for Fritz in our society.

[maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

was excited to pick this up after watching clips/learning about fritz in my animation history class a few years back. big fan of the art style/line work but i struggle with satirical/commentary content like this because it reaches a point where i question whether the artist is actually *saying* anything or just using the work as a vehicle to let loose their own dark fantasies/prejudices and societal taboos.

[Giovanni Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, what a trip! Stuff like this is kind of hard for me to rate, because it puts me in a really odd headspace. What you’re reading is reprehensible, truly shocking at times and degenerative, yet this filth is extremely well written, the obvious satire and critique is sharp and biting, it’s a very carefully balanced act that works out super well and creates for a very engaging and interesting read. Very good.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crumb's art is fantastic, just dripping with cynical 60s counter-culture sleaze. The weird horniness in this book is off the charts, and the way Crumb draws women is frankly inspirational. But despite obviously being a satire, the misogyny and casual racism are pretty unsurmountable in the end. It just kinda leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth.

[Mari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adorei. Robert R. Crumb mesmo sabia o que fazia, however se tivesse de ter uma conversa com ele acho que explodia. Zero críticas tirando que acho que nunca tinha lido tantas cenas de violação estranhas em BD e preferia não as ter lido. O Fritz é tipo o Bojack Horseman só que menos triste e mais engraçado e mais asqueroso também. Mas eu gostei muito.

[Xisix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adequate steps towards Crumb's more developed style. Picked up on whim and although it hints at wild acerbic sexist racist wild humor it doesn't go as all out as S. Clay Wilson for example. Didn't empathize or care too much about what happened to sexing partying Fritz that aimless feline.

[Kim]

Crumb shows great understanding of comics language. But the content 👎🏻.

[Eve Kay · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can appreciate Crumb. But that's it, I just can't enjoy his work.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing adventures of Fritz, possibly the horniest cat in the world. It won't be to everyone's taste, but if you like underground comix, it's a must read.

[Zack! Empire · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun look at Crumb growing as an artist as each story takes place over a different era in his life.

[Rubi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am loosing my interest in. R. Crumb. This reads like a wet dream for a horny teenager/far right spectator like Alex Jones.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Step up to the counter,
Culture comes and screams.

[Morpheus Lunae · Rating 3 out of 5]

2021 really is not the 60s anymore.