The image accompanying this article is a digital reproduction of a color piece of Robert Crumb art so rare his most dedicated fans aren't likely to have seen it unless their local comics shop is located on the Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud. The story behind it is a sad tale that will do a lot of damage to any cherished illusions you may have had about the avant-garde cultural sophistication of the French.

Such illusions die hard. One thinks of Crumb as a controversial artistic genius without honor in his own country, who has therefore gone to live in France, away from the Spawn worshipers and Lara Croft fanatics. The largest and most prestigious comics festival outside the United States is held every January in Angoulême, France, and Crumb was chosen to be president of Angoulême 2000. In the United States, it's been a long time since Crumb was considered for any honor greater than Best Performance by a Pervert Playing Himself in a Documentary. Making him the guest of honor at a millennial comics celebration is just the sort of savvy move one would expect of the country that had to point out to us that John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock were great directors before we took notice.

Closer examination, however, revealed that an assembly of the world's best, brightest and most honored cartoonists were responsible for Crumb's selection as president - a choice that reportedly induced cold sweats among the suits at the large European comics publishing houses. At the 1999 Angoulême Festival, the Academie des Grands Prix, composed of all the former Angoulême honorees, met, according to tradition, to select the festival president for 2000. Jean-Pierre Mercier, Scientific Advisor to the Comics Museum of the Centre National de la Bande Dessinéet de l'Image (National Center for Comics and Images), told the Journal Crumb's election by his fellow comics creators was "short and unanimous."

But the Festival organizers, administrative board, attending publishers and financial backers had no part in the decision., and, according to Crumb's wife, cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb, "The big publishing houses didn't like Robert as the choice of artist to be honored."

France, it turns out, is not that different from the U.S., and Crumb's work is just as marginalized or unknown among the general French public as it is here. Crumb told the Journal, "I'm better known than my work. I have this reputation as a minor celebrity with a certain amount of infamy or notoriety, but I'm not Charles Schulz. My work doesn't sell any better here than in the U.S. The festival was trying to appeal more to families and trying to get the participation of the two big publishers. They were not happy about my involvement at all."

Mercier said, "I have been told that big mainstream publishers didn't agree on Crumb's choice, but I have no real proof of it."

Most of the funding for the festival comes from Leclerc (a discount supermarket chain), Caisse d'Epargne Ecureil (a savings bank), the consul general of La Charente (a regional government bureau) and the City of Angoulême. For the U.S. approximation of the Crumb Angoulême controversy, imagine NASA's reaction if a panel of stoned cartoonists had picked Crumb's Devil Girl or Angelfood McSpade to be the public-relations mascot for its lunar missions.

Mercier was asked to organize the Crumb exhibition at Angoulême and to act as liaison between the festival and the artist. Mercier described Crumb's reaction on learning the news as "surprise, gratefulness and fear. After accepting it, he right away told me he wouldn't take part in any 'media event' (interviews, TV shows, speeches, etc.) The only thing he agreed on doing was to lend artwork for an exhibition, give a concert during the 2000 Festival with Les Primitifs du Futur [the old-time jazz band for which Crumb plays banjo] and draw a poster that the Festival could use for its communication [promotions]."

If the big publishers and financial backers behind Angoulême had been nervous about Crumb's selection, the conditions Crumb set for producing a poster for the festival could not have put them at ease. He would not provide roughs or multiple proposals. Accordng to Mercier, Crumb told the Festival, "I will draw something. If it is accepted, fine. If not, fine, too. I'll get it back, and that's it."

The poster was finished in August of 1999, and Mercier brought it by hand to the Festival organizers, who accepted it, he said, "without any comment." According to Crumb, "They kept delaying and delaying. I guess they were upset because it was filled with a lot of detail and there were a couple of nude little figures. You could see a teeny dick. At one point they wanted to make the image smaller."

Traditionally, each year's chosen Festival president produces the art for the Festival's primary promotional poster. For whatever reason, the Angoulême 2000 organizers decided to concentrate their promotional efforts on a generic poster with the year 2000 as a theme and no art at all. This alternate poster was designed by a Parisian public relations firm called Trait pour Trait and featured "2000" in large purple numerals against a dark purple background, on which were listed all the Festival's previous award winners. Crumb's poster was printed in limited numbers (Mercier estimated 4,000), but it was the alternate poster that was used to promote the Festival in a broad range of venues.

Mercier told the Journal, "Crumb fans and admirers reacted stongly to that, since it was the first time in years that the award winner poster wasn't used for the general communication of the Festival. Some pointed out to me that even controversial artists such as Vuillemin did the communication of the Festival in the past years."

According to Mercier, the alternate poster did not go over well, because it was so mimimalist that it was unclear what it was promoting. "So it was easy for some to jump to the conclusion that the Crumb poster was censored and Crumb himself ostracized by the organization of the Festival," he said.

In Kominsky-Crumb's view, there's no question but that "the money people suppressed his poster. It was a really nice poster. It just wasn't commercial."

Festival director Jean-Marc Thevenet did not respond to e-mailed questions from the Journal.

In protest against the Festival's decision, Crumb supporters led by Tête Rock, the French publisher of Crumb and Gilbert Shelton, put together their own Angoulême poster using the most obscene images they could find from Crumb's long comics career. This poster was assembled with Crumb's blessing and thousands of copies were distributed and posted with the Festival's name prominently displayed as if they were official Angoulême posters.

Crumb recounted these events in his familiar doleful manner, but confessed to taking some pride in having been chosen by the Angoulême cartoonists. "It's recognition by artists," he said. "That's something."

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