Robert Crumb became famous in the heyday of '60s counterculture, when Zap Comix, Mr. Natural, and the "Keep on Truckin'" guy became icons to a generation of hippies who probably didn't realize that Crumb hated them. But he hates everybody.

Director Terry Zwigoff filmed the artist and his family over a six-year period to come up with a documentary both broad and deep that looks at Crumb's rise to fame, his singular obsessions, and the twisted childhood that still drives him.

Despite his hippie associations, much of Crumb's early art was violent, sexually hostile, and obsessed with racial stereotypes. His women were fat-legged, heroically assed monsters with gorgon's heads (or none), and his men self-hating, venomous, and lustful. But regardless of what you think of the man and his art, the documentary is a quiet, devastating portrait of his sexual obsessions and the wreck of his family.

Robert, it turns out, is the conventional one. His brothers Charles and Maxon, both one-time artists as well, are still suffering the toll of their father's violence and '50s repression, and their interviews are poignant and disturbing. After descending into suicide attempts and madness Charles still lives with their mother, and Maxon, a repeat sexual offender who molests women in the streets, lives in a squalid SRO hotel.

All three are morbidly driven by their sexual obsessions, and all are still consumed with decades-old slights -- Robert still remembers the names, faces, and body parts of the girls who did him wrong in high school. But only one was able to channel his preoccupations into something that engaged the outside world.

Crumb himself is an intriguing knot of contradictions, and despite his self-deprecating humor, not entirely likeable. He's sensitive and misanthropic, arrogant and timid, a recluse who seems to enjoy all the attention. He complains about fame, but it's fame that makes women invite him to fondle their asses and ride around on their backs; otherwise would he be grabbing them on the street like Maxon? And listening to someone who sells $20 "Keep on Truckin'" t-shirts (and shoes, and key chains, and bumper stickers) bellyache about American consumerism borders on a bad joke. But rather than lionizing his old friend, Zwigoff presents the whole picture, which is what makes this such an absorbing film.

Criterion's extras include almost an hour of unused footage, a new commentary from Zwigoff, the commentary between Zwigoff and Roger Ebert from the 2006 Special Edition DVD, a pointless gallery of production stills, and a booklet featuring a short critical essay and art from all three of the brothers Crumb. (The same extra features are available on Criterion's DVD release. The Blu-ray features a new HD transfer, but it doesn't do much to improve the original 16mm footage.)

Crumb was universally acclaimed, winning the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes and making lots of Best of the Year and Best of the Decade lists. And whether you think Crumb's art is self-indulgent dreck or a window into what he calls "the horror of America," this quiet portrait is funny, troubling, and in the end, sad.

Crumb [Blu-ray Edition] is available now from the Criterion Collection.