Sending Your Graphic Novel to Robert Crumb
An Interview with Ian Marsden on Comics, Marvin Hamislisch, and Learning from Robert Crumb
Recently, the cartoonist Ian David Marsden shared a LinkedIn post that immediately caught my eye: “Sending a graphic novel to Robert Crumb is like sending a mixtape to Mozart. It is an act of hubris bordered by insanity.” He described Crumb’s “brutally honest — technical, funny, and precise — review,” which, to his astonishment, ended with the disarming line: “THAT SAID, IT’S STILL A GOOD BOOK.”
Intrigued, I reached out to Marsden, who is based in Montpellier, to hear the story first hand. A tale that winds from New York to a small French village where the world’s most famous underground cartoonist lives just down the road. Our conversation, held over WhatsApp, ranged across Marsden’s eclectic career, the making of his 2020 graphic novel Marvin: Based on The Way I Was, his adaptation of composer Marvin Hamlisch’s autobiography — and one unforgettable encounter with Robert Crumb.
In a recent conversation with Gil Roth of The Virtual Memories Podcast, he noted that many of the greats in the comics world are surprisingly humble and approachable. Marsden’s exchange with Crumb is yet another example: behind the legend and the mythos was a neighbour willing to send a postcard, share a meal, and offer honest, thoughtful critique.
From Google Doodles to The New Yorker
Born in New York in 1967 to English and Swiss parents, Marsden grew up surrounded by art, languages, and cross-cultural influences. He published his first cartoons at just sixteen — in the German edition of Penthouse, no less. His father’s reaction has since become family lore: “It’s pretty impressive that you’re selling cartoons to a magazine you’re not even old enough to buy yet.”
Marsden’s career has since spanned continents and mediums. Around 2000, he served as Google’s first (and for a time, only) Google Doodle artist, creating now-iconic designs including the kangaroo doodles for the Sydney Olympics. He fulfilled a childhood dream by placing work in both The New Yorker and MAD Magazine, all while continuing to write, animate, design, and art-direct during the first internet boom. Through every shift, his commitment to illustration and narrative remained constant.
The Making of Marvin
Marsden’s graphic novel Marvin (2020) adapts composer Marvin Hamlisch’s autobiography The Way I Was. The project began after literary agent Anna Olswanger approached him with the idea of introducing Hamlisch’s story to a new generation.
The initial five-page pitch was widely rejected. Nearly a year passed before Schiffer Kids expressed interest. Olswanger believed the graphic adaptation could appeal to younger readers and break open Hamlisch’s legacy for a new audience. The resulting book — smaller in format and more colourful in style — reflects that intention, though Marsden is quick to add: “It can absolutely be read by adults. It’s not strictly a children’s book.”
Condensing the life of a prodigious composer into a tight graphic narrative meant intentional omission. “There’s no way you’re going to condense all of that into a graphic novel unless you’re doing, you know, 350 pages,” Marsden told me. He attacked the task methodically, reading the autobiography with pink and orange highlighters, mapping out key scenes, and shaping the emotional arc.
The story begins not with Hamlisch’s rise but with his parents’ past in Vienna and their escape to the United States. This, Marsden felt, was the emotional core. “They had to leave Austria,” he said. “That metal-grit mentality explains so much — why his father drove him so hard to succeed.” Hamlisch, born in New York to Jewish refugee parents, grew up shy, nervous, and acutely pressured — traits Marsden captures with sensitivity throughout the book.
He handled every aspect of the adaptation himself: structuring the script, writing the dialogue, lettering, pencilling, inking, and colouring. The result is a portrait of Hamlisch not just as a musical titan, but as a human being shaped by displacement, expectation, and inherited fear.
Ian David Marsden in conversation with the author via WhatsApp, Montpellier–London.
Encounter with Crumb
It was Marvin — shaped by decades of work and a deeply felt historical narrative — that Marsden finally sent to the most intimidating critic imaginable.
When Marsden moved to the South of France, locals repeatedly mentioned that an American cartoonist lived nearby. Eventually, he discovered that Robert Crumb’s house was unmistakable: “The doorbell actually says Crumb — written in his Crumb style.”
Gathering his courage, Marsden sent a handwritten letter assuring Crumb he wasn’t a stalker.
The reply defied all expectations: a postcard with a small drawing and a rambling, self-deprecating note. “Marsden… Thanks for writing. How’s your French? Mine’s horrible. I’m a terrible failure. I barely leave the house. Here’s my phone number — give me a call. Maybe we can have dinner or something.”
Dinner followed — with Crumb and his wife, the late Aline Kominsky-Crumb — and so did a neighbourly friendship. Marsden recalls Crumb as direct, dryly funny, occasionally grumpy, and “super, super friendly,” while Aline was lively and effervescent.
The “Mixtape to Mozart” Review
During a period of post-pandemic burnout, Marsden decided to do the unthinkable: he sent Crumb a copy of Marvin. “I wanted to know what he really thinks,” he told me — even though he felt the gesture was “hubris bordered by insanity.”
Two days later, a full-page handwritten critique arrived.
Crumb’s feedback was everything Marsden expected — and much more:
Technical: He spoke about the difficulty of editing graphic novels, comparing it to directing a film rather than editing prose.
Precise: He singled out a panel featuring a steamboat and wrote: “That was just lazy. You should have researched the steamboat.”
Funny: A collector of pre-1930s records, Crumb gleefully skewered Hamlisch’s Broadway show tunes as “schlock” and “sentimental rocks.”
Generous: Despite the sharp critique, he closed with one line Marsden will never forget:
“THAT SAID, IT’S STILL A GOOD BOOK.”
Learning to Direct the Page
Marsden says he doesn’t regret his private, all-in process on Marvin — but Crumb’s feedback has already influenced his approach. His upcoming projects for French publishers will be “bigger, more detailed, more subdued in colour,” and grounded in careful visual research.
The most significant lesson, however, was Crumb’s comment on editing. Marsden wholeheartedly agrees:
“Editing a graphic novel requires its own skill set. Editors who don’t understand the visual language can wreak havoc on pacing and structure.”
A Life Drawn Across Borders
Ian David Marsden’s career is a testament to the unexpected paths creative lives can follow — from early magazine cartoons to pioneering work at Google, from a musical biography rooted in Jewish refugee history to a surreal and heartwarming connection with Robert Crumb.
And somewhere in the South of France, Crumb’s verdict still echoes: “It’s still a good book.”
You can explore more of Marsden’s work at MarsdenIllustration.com.
Interview by Jonathan Sandler, Author of THE ENGLISH GI: WORLD WAR II GRAPHIC MEMOIR OF A YORKSHIRE SCHOOLBOY’S ADVENTURES IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE published in April 2022.
What a great story!