Deluxe Version with Signed Print and Pre-Production Proof -- The Captain is Out to Lunch and The Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (#116/426)

The Captain is Out to Lunch and The Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship was the final collaboration between Charles Bukowski and Robert Crumb

There are two versions of the book with the same title. This version was published by Black Sparrow Press in March 1998. This is the Deluxe Edition and contains a signed portrait of Bukowski by Crumb.

This copy also comes with a Pre-Production Proof specifying the layout of the book. It includes all the pages, and even black and white photocopies of Crumb’s prints. Blank pages are also noted, and the first page reprints a flyer for the book in black and white. It has a comb binding with a transparent front cover and a green vinyl cover on the back.

The layout copy of the book is in near fine condition, with the transparent front piece scuffed/scratched with a 1.5” Xacto blade cut.

The book itself is in Fine condition and is hand-numbered 116/426 on the colophon.

The content for the book comes from a series of Bukowski journal entries that appeared in ONTHEBUS in the early 1990s. The magazine was published by Bukowski’s long-time friend Jack Grapes. Grapes encouraged Bukowski to take up writing journals as a way to cope with his declining health.

Bukowski first met Crumb in 1972 at a party hosted by Liza Williams, who was Bukowski’s girlfriend at the time. Bukowski and Crumb appeared in several magazines and weeklies together prior to them meeting, so he was familiar with Crumb’s work.

"You know, your stuff is good, kid,” Bukowski told him at the party. “It's the real thing. Just keep away from the cocktail parties.”

Three years later their first collaboration was published in Arcade 3. Published by Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith, Arcade was a last-ditch attempt to keep the underground comix movement relevant by creating an adult-focused magazine that appealed to the mainstream. Issues were published from 1975 to 1976 and featured well-known artists such as Crumb, Kim Deitch, Spain Rodriguez, and S. Clay Wilson. For content, they tapped writers such as Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Paul Krassner and J. Hoberman.

Arcade 3 featured a Crumb front cover of a bohemian-looking character walking through a city landscape on a windy fall day with a balloon caption reading, “This, to me, is sheer poetry!!” Inside, Crumb illustrated the Bukowski short story, “Bop Bop Against That Curtain”, a humorous coming of age story where a young Bukowski spends his afternoon with friends who eventually end up at a cheap burlesque theater.

Bukowski and Crumb’s next two projects were both published by Black Sparrow Press. Bring Me Your Love (1983) was about a man visiting his wife in an insane asylum and There's No Business (1984) featured an aging MC who just doesn’t have it anymore. Both were given the usual Black Sparrow treatment with hardcover deluxe editions.

File Box 1 and Crate 2