ROBERT CRUMB — Robert Crumb Postcards. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, 1990

Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 1990. First edition. Complete set of ten black-and-white postcards in the original illustrated paper envelope. Each card approximately 14.6 × 10.8 cm. Original retail price: $4.95 / $5.95 Canada. Envelope artwork © 1973 R. Crumb.

Condition: Good. Original envelope with pronounced handling creases, rubbing, scattered marks, softened corners and small edge tears. Retained inside an old clear protective sleeve with tape, blank stock labels and a handwritten “1990” notation. The ten cards remain enclosed and have not been individually removed for inspection.

Crumb’s drawings first travelled through inexpensive underground newspapers, comic books and self-contained magazines. By 1990, Fantagraphics was also assembling his work into the ongoing Complete Crumb Comics series, whose second volume received the 1989 Harvey Award for Best Domestic Reprint Project. The same material was therefore being preserved as an archive and redistributed through smaller commercial formats at the same moment.

This packet converts ten drawings into separate postal units. Each card was made to leave the set, receive an address and enter another circulation. Here they remain together. The envelope retains its original $4.95 price, its cover drawing retains a 1973 copyright, and the later sleeve carries the date 1990. Image, publication and storage remain visible as successive layers of the same object.

Securely packed; tracked UK and international shipping available.