Maxon Crumb is the younger brother of Robert Crumb, creator of such beloved underground comix creations as Mr Natural, Fritz The Cat and Devil Girl, and star of Terry Zwigoff's 1994 arthouse classic Crumb. Maxon - together with his mother and other older brother Charles Crumb (who killed himself in 1992) - makes a cameo appearance in Zwigoff's epic, and his strange 'inner sanctum of holy man' ritual (which involves him ingesting a 21ft-long cotton cloth and passing it through the full length of his digestive tract) is partially explored and explained.

Born 28 March 1945, Maxon was encouraged to draw at an early age by his two brothers, who had created a comic book club where they put together their own comics. He was, however, more drawn towards creative writing. While his brothers paid secret homage to Donald Duck artist Carl Barks and the comic adventures of Little Lulu, Maxon's gods were the mighty scribes Shakespeare, Melville and Dostoyevsky.

Although it would be suppressed by his domineering father, his desire to become a writer never faded away, and his devotion to writing and drawing would eventually end up sharing the same page. In 1994, Maxon self-published Crumb's Brother's Magazine, which contained a 20,000word story called 'Stigmata' that was illustrated with a selection of his curious and tormented black-and-white illustrations.

'Stigmata' is an allegorical rant set in a fantasy factory where the workers (or 'spitters') are forced to eat beans which, when combined with their stomach juices, are regurgitated as ink for use by the higher-ranking 'scribes'. The disastrous side effects of ink production on the spitters, however, include "temper tantrums, seizures, nutso nonstop crazy raving, grandiose out-actings, senseless and unsolicited sexual advances".

Maxon's series of Cubist/porno illustrations that accompany his grim fairytale are equally unnerving and comically perverse. A woman with crushed features masturbating her similarly deformed, vomiting male partner and a dog with tusks fucking a disembodied female head are just two of the distorted scenarios which illuminate this unhinged graphic masterpiece.

Those in search of Maxon's earlier and more recent work should check out Crumb Family Comics (Last Gasp) (which reprints 'Stigmata') and Maxon's Poe (Cottage Classics) where the artist twists his pen into the still beating heart of Edgar Allan Poe's tales of mystery and imagination, which magnifies the work he produced for his 'Stigmata' story. As brother Robert observes in his introduction, both author and artist are somehow uncannily well suited to each other.

Crumb Family Comics and Maxon's Poe are both available from: Bud Plant Comic Art, PO Box 1689, Grass Valley, CA 95945-1689, USA. www.budplant.com

The video of Crumb is on Artificial Eye, distributed by Fox Video. For stockists information, call 0207 753 8686.